A study of the federal role in the advancement of lifelong learning focused on the probable impact of a federally supported lifelong learning system and the existing educational system on one another. The conditions and parameters of the following claim were examined: any lifelong learning enterprise initially funded by the federal government outside of the existing educational system as nonsequential, nonselective and noncertificatory will be transformed into a system that is sequenced, selective, and certificatory. The conclusions were that (1) any effort to determine federal policy in the case of lifelong learning by the conduct of small-scale experiments is likely to be maximally misleading, (2) there are many opportunities for a small-scale federal role to be quite successful by attaching an increase of lifelong learning opportunities to already existing federal programs, (3) any new initiative in lifelong learning should constitute a rapid expansion of those institutions that are free, accessible, and open to all Americans without discrimination, and (4) some subsidies should be made available for existing institutions to serve new populations. (Much of this report is devoted to showing how a federally supported expansion of lifelong learning opportunities will develop into a system much like the existing educational system, and how that will affect the existing educational system.) (EM)