Development must offer people not only release from poverty but also social esteem and political freedom. While knowledge production has exploded, its distribution and use is still limited, especially in the Third World. Literacy is the most promising means of bringing information and technology to common people in developing nations. Each country carries out development in its own context and by its own values, but development is also a global concern. Individual power can be viewed as the universal human need and the differentiated individual capacity to affect both material and symbolic environments. However, power is unequally distributed. Empowerment is the process whereby the powerless: (1) acquire critical consciousness about their individual reality; and (2) organize to multiply individual into collective power. A challenge to most developing countries is to retrieve and renew usable knowledge from indigenous traditions and connect it with new scientific and technical knowledge. The print and electronic media of mass culture do not always serve the knowledge needs of these populations. Education can be brought to them through traditional and nontraditional means. Adult literacy is potential power, but just as development must be appropriate to yield the desired results, literacy education must also be appropriately defined and designed. (Adjunct ERIC Clearinghouse on Literacy Education) (MSE)