There are three challenges academic institutions must address in order to achieve the goal of ensuring that distant students are afforded the opportunities of independent learning: (1) academic libraries must effectively utilize technology to make the information resources in their research collections accessible to distant students; (2) academic librarians must utilize instructional and communications technologies to extend their services to distant students; and (3) information support staff, faculty development personnel, and librarians must work with teaching faculty to ensure that they understand the limitations of the distance technologies they employ to extend their classrooms. The University of Nebraska-Lincoln has addressed these challenges by establishing a coordinator position within the libraries to provide oversight for services to distant learners. The primary aspects of library operations that the coordinator facilitates for distant learners are access to electronic resources, provision of liaison services, and timely delivery of materials. Access to the library's online public access catalog, bibliographic databases, full text databases, reference works, electronic journals, and a classified catalog of Internet resources is provided through an Integrated Research Information System. Liaison librarians offer instructional support for remote students. Materials are requested electronically and delivered directly to students' homes. (DLS)