This paper traces library instructional programs available to graduate students in academic institutions in North America from the late 1950s to the present. Three chronological perspectives provide the framework for this analysis. The first includes programs from 1958 to 1989 that offered traditional bibliographic instruction of print resources as well as some online and CD-ROM databases prior to the widespread availability of the Internet. The second considers information literacy instructional efforts in the 1990s that paralleled the rise of the Internet. The third outlines current initiatives beginning in 2000 that aimed to produce lifelong learners among graduate students through innovative instructional techniques.