Although all areas of the country share certain educational challenges--such as having quality teachers in every classroom; making every school a peaceable, safe environment in which to learn; and ensuring that every child learns to read well and comprehends science and mathematics at a functionally high level--each region confronts a unique set of obstacles in overcoming these challenges and may, as a response to its distinct regional needs, prioritize them differently. Through an established regional infrastructure, each Regional Educational Laboratory (REL) seeks to help schools, districts, and states within its region access the equally unique means to overcome those obstacles. In addition to its regional responsibilities, each REL assists the others by maintaining a repository of current expertise on a specific educational topic of pressing national concern, for example, combining technology and learning, teaching diverse students, assessing academic achievement, building family and community connections, improving curriculum and instruction, and helping schools negotiate standards-based reform. To show the scope of the REL system's work, the 10 regional laboratories describe, in the pages that follow, their contributions to the national priority topics and their particular responses to distinctive regional education problems. These illustrations of the RELs' work reveal a system that is fluid and ever changing to meet evolving regional needs, a system seeking to improve access to a quality education for all children.