This issue examines inflation protection for pensions in the 1990s and beyond. It describes how providers of retirement services can offer participants opportunities to improve inflation protection through product design, services, and educational programs. It explains the use of inflation-indexed (real bonds), noting the potential role for such bonds in the U.S. economy and experience with indexed bonds issued by a number of foreign governments, especially the United Kingdom. The article emphasizes that the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association College Retirement Equities Fund (TIAA-CREF), with its special responsibility for people in the education and research communities, has long recognized the potentially debilitating effects of inflation on retirement savings as well as its participants' fears of such an outcome. The issue includes charts showing inflation volatility since 1947, CREF stock values versus inflation since 1952, expected nominal returns versus inflation since 1978, comparison of yield volatility of real and ordinary bonds in the United Kingdom, and comparison of real annuity payments and a hypothetical inflation-protected annuity. The issue concludes that real bonds offer potential advantages to annuitants and to people saving for retirement in defined-contribution plans, even those where inflation-protection policies have long been a feature of the plan. (Contains 15 references.) (CK)