As articulated by President Reagan, the Adult Literacy Initiative has two goals: to raise all adults in the country to a functional reading level and to focus on promoting literacy among adults--not "stamping out" or "attacking" illiteracy. Professionals at the National Adult Literacy Project and Conference considered the problems of adult literacy education, raising eight main issues in their papers. First of all, the speakers emphasized a need to understand better the adult literacy problem in the United States. Closely related to the first concern is the necessity to understand better the need for adults to have different kinds of skills and knowledges for the future. A third issue is the need to have a better understanding of the various delivery systems for adult literacy development, their clients, and their effectiveness. The problems of adults who must learn English as a second language raise issues unique to this population and must be considered separately from the rest of adult basic education. Closely related to the issues surrounding the teaching of English as a second language is the need to understand literacy problems in the United States by comparison to the literacy problems in the rest of the world. An issue of central concern for all of the presenters is the need to understand the difference between the development of literacy during childhood and in adulthood, while the seventh issue they raised is the need to understand better the use of technology in the development and delivery of adult literacy programs. Finally, the eighth issue concerns the need for a clearly articulated national policy for adult literacy development. (KC)