The dilemmas faced by the educational research community generally raise important implications for the new National Institute of Education. Pressing social problems require immediate solution, however, demands for immediate results in the complex problem areas of education may lead to incompletely conceived programs and sloppy scholarship. Related dilemmas include achieving a reasonable balance between long- and short-term research, determining appropriate means to insure that educational practice reflects important R&D findings, developing a true collegial relationship between education researchers in the field and members of the NIE staff, gaining credibility among the variety of constitutencies that NIE serves, finding ways to capitalize on dismal evaluation experiences, and making realistic assessments of educational goals. Hopefully, NIE will promote continuity, openness, and diversity in educational research and development and, at the same time, will help to avoid a headlong rush toward simplistic solutions to ill-understood problems. A related document is EA 004 881. (JH)