This paper explores the emerging relationship between distance education and sustainable development. After ranging through the literature on sustainable community development, this essay concludes that above all it must be unified: it must combine the traditional economic criteria for success (profits and employment) with a fusing of community and corporate culture and a strong applied ethic of environmental stewardship. As well, successful sustainable community development must be mindful of the quest for the well-lived life. The most obvious link between such development and distance education is that distance education serves small communities, many of which are infused with traditional wisdom and struggling to recapture self-reliance in economic conditions of change and unpredictability. In many northern Canadian communities, people are also concerned with environmental stewardship issues, which typically are introduced from outside and appear beyond local control. Distance education can empower adults in small communities to undertake participatory action research to solve local problems. In the Arctic Institute's experience with Native communities, both locally developed curriculum materials and community-based adult education programs can nurture community empowerment, cultural and language maintenance, and entrepreneurship. Finally, we must recognize that the emerging environmental crisis is the end product of science and technology rooted in orthodox Christian arrogance toward nature. We need new values of environmental ethics and stewardship. Contains 23 references. (SV)