A National Initiative has been formed to address the urgent need for the humanities and arts to gain a voice in the planning and development of the National Information Infrastructure (NII). This report makes a case for the importance of connecting all people with electronic access to the nation's cultural heritage, and relates the special challenges and opportunities associated with digitizing humanities and arts information to the administration's "Agenda for Action for the National Information Infrastructure." The initiative profile includes a discussion of: public benefits of the humanities and arts in the information age; necessary components of a humanities and arts information infrastructure; community response to the profile report; and next steps. The report also summarizes the findings of the National Initiative's two working groups on technical requirements and electronic resources. It is contended that the technological research and investment required to bring the complex resources of the humanities and arts into digital form and to make them accessible would contribute profoundly to the most difficult technological challenges of our age: machine understanding, machine vision, and natural language processing. Five appendices include: "Important Computer-Based Projects in the Humanities and Arts"; "Sponsors of the National Initiative"; "Working Group on Technical Requirements"; "Working Group on Electronic Resources"; and "Advisory Meeting Participants (July 14, 1994)." (MAS)