This project was launched in FY 1995 to boost distance education efforts in the Pacific Islands region. The project's primary objective was to compile a text on distance education in the region as a reference for Pacific Islands distance educators. The contributors to the text represented a broad cross-section of Pacific Island countries: four former directors of Extension Centers of the University of the South Pacific; distance education experts from Papua New Guinea; the director of the University of Hawaii's Pan-Pacific Education and Communication Experiment Satellite (PEACESAT) program; the director of distance education programs at Guam University; and specialists from Canada, the United States, Australia and New Zealand with extensive knowledge of distance education in the Pacific Islands. The coordinating editors were Prof. Toshio Kosuge of the University of Electro-Communication (Japan) and Prof. John Chick of the University of New England (Australia). (Prof. Chick passed away suddenly during the project. He was succeeded by Dr. Richard Guy of the Papua New Guinea National Research Institute.) As the fruit of this collaboration of eminent leaders in the field, the text provides a rigorous, broad-ranging and balanced view of the history, economics, technology and political background of distance education in the Pacific.