This paper focuses on an approach to instructional development that consists of three basic stages interrelated by feedback. The first stage, system definition and management, is an exhaustive effort to define the problem, study the existing instructional context, and determine staff support and management controls. Stage two, design analysis and development, results in the development of precise specifications for the messages and the strategies thought to be most appropriate to the resolution of the learning problem and the construction of an instructional prototype. The third stage, prototype tryout and assessment, includes field testing the developed prototype with a representative sample of the target population. During the field test, evaluation data are compiled, which are the basis for the refinement or abandonment of the prototype. (A 5-item annotated bibliography and diagrams illustrating the approach conclude this paper.) (PD)