This national study on lead poisoning in children is organized in three parts. Part 1 provides an executive summary. Part 2 presents background information, an overview, findings, and conclusions. Part 3, which constitutes the bulk of the report, discusses terms, issues, and findings concerning lead metabolism, its relationship to lead exposure and adverse effects of lead, and adverse health effects of lead in relationship to public health risk and societal well-being. Also discussed are the number of children exposed to lead in the United States; numbers of children exposed to lead according to lead source; numbers of women of child bearing age and pregnant women exposed to lead; low-level lead sources and children's aggregate exposure to lead; methods and alternatives for reducing environmental exposure to lead for young children and related risk groups; environmental releases of lead as evaluated under the Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act of 1986; and exposure to lead and toxicity in children and other related groups. Information gaps, research needs, and recommendations are discussed. Appendices provide numerous tables of data, a draft report on lead-contaminated soil cleanup, the final and proposed national priorities list of waste sites with lead as a contaminant, and methodological details of blood-lead prevalence projections from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey II data. References number 255. (RH)