The Carnegie Corporation's mission is to continue Andrew Carnegie's philanthropic preoccupations with promoting education and world peace. In this essay, retiring Carnegie Corporation President David A. Hamburg provides a detailed accounting of his stewardship of the foundation since 1983, when he set forth new program directions in the context of drastic changes in the American family and society and, more broadly, the Cold War and the worldwide transformation in science and technology. The essay outlines an agenda for national and international attention in the future, focusing on the need for communities of the world to reconcile their differences and cooperate in creating systems for the prevention of mass violence. Also described is Corporation support for research and projects to clarify the positive conditions for ensuring healthy child and adolescent development, to make this knowledge widely understood throughout the country, and to strengthen the capacity of key institutions, beginning with the family and schools, to meet the developmental and educational needs of children from the prenatal period to age fifteen. Through grant programs to improve the education and healthy development of children and youth, improve superpower relations, strengthen human resources in developing countries, and promote democratic processes throughout the world, the foundation seeks to prevent the effects of disadvantaged environments. Changes due to technological advance and global economic integration raise educational questions, in which people must learn to adjust their knowledge and skills to new circumstances and learn to prepare for change itself. (JPB)