Acting on the charge presented by Chancellor Aiken, the Commission on Extension began its work in February 1996. We gathered information about the University of Illinois Cooperative Extension System through 13 public forums, with oral and written testimony from 212 individuals, focus groups involving 31 community and business leaders, and correspondence from 163 Illinois citizens. Through these and 14 Commission meetings and conference calls, it became clear that there is overwhelming public support in Illinois for the mission and contributions of U of I Extension. U of I Extension has the unique responsibility to link the people of Illinois with the research and information resources of the land-grant university system. This responsibility makes Extension a fundamental part of the University's outreach mission. The Cooperative Extension System was created by the Federal Smith-Lever Act in 1914 as a partnership between federal, state, and local governments. Extension was designed to share, or "extend," information from colleges of agriculture and home economics. Throughout the century, as the needs of the country's people have changed, U of I Extension has evolved to address the increasingly complex issues related to modern agriculture, communities, youth, and families. The mission of the federal Cooperative Extension System is to help people help themselves through an educational process that uses scientific knowledge focused on issues and needs. But this statement of purpose, unbounded by discipline, audience, or geography, is too broad to achieve. No university or state has the resources to address all needs or solve all problems. The almost unlimited need for information and expertise has stretched a necessarily limited budget, creating a gap between needs and resources. During the past decade, this gap was widened by declining public resources for the land-grant university system and reductions in university faculty and U of I Extension staff. After 11 months of study, the Commission found very strong evidence that U of I Extension is and can continue to be relevant and critical to the people of Illinois. The challenge is how to define and organize the system to serve effectively into the 21st century in an environment of ever-faster changes, more competition for scarce public funds, and expanding demands for research-based education and information. We believe the recommendations in this report, if implemented, will help the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) and U of I Extension serve the people of Illinois into the 21st century. However, 11 months of gathering information, conducting analyses, and considering recommendations is too little time to work on a plan to reorganize such a complex system. Thus, the Commission fully expects that others will have to develop detailed implementation strategies and plans. The implementation plan should seek to minimize the disruption of people, programs, and partnerships. The remainder of the report outlines our recommendations, provides a foundation for them (Appendix A), and offers background information (Appendix B).