This brief describes action learning (AL), discusses some of its advantages and challenges, highlights its educational applications, and recommends practices for future implementation. Action learning may be characterized as voluntary learning that is centered around the need to find solutions to real problems, that is equally concerned with individual development and finding solutions to problems, and that is a highly visible and time-consuming social process possibly leading to organizational change. Action learning has five elements: the problem, set, client, set advisor, and process. Action learning enables set participants to solve longstanding problems that could not be solved by simple training while simultaneously developing their leadership abilities. Challenges to the action learning methodology include concerns about the methodology itself and its misinterpretation and questions about its effectiveness. Action learning has many applications in adult education and human resource development. It may be used whenever learners have salient, nontechnical problems to solve and the capacity to work in small groups. Adult educators wishing to use action learning should take the following steps: prepare set participants for the action learning process with a start-up workshop; have set participants complete learning style questionnaires before the workshop; ensure that advisors have appropriate preparatory training; and document participants' personal development and encourage reflection throughout the action learning process. (Contains 20 references.) (MN)