In 2003, the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT), recognizing the need for a standard definition of distance education, issued a monograph that posed a definition of distance education as "institution-based, formal education where the learning group is separated and where interactive telecommunications systems are used to connect learners, resources, and instructors" (Schlosser & Simonson, 2003, p. 1). Though posing this new definition, the authors acknowledged that different perspectives of distance education result in different definitions and that their "definition is not the only one and certainly not the first offered for distance education" (p. 3). As recently as Spring 2003, members of AECT's Distance Learning Division debated the boundaries of the field. Some held the position that the distance learning term was outmoded in a society characterized primarily by "blended" scenarios in which traditional classroom instruction is supplemented with varying degrees of distance instruction. This article explores the notion that the multiple and changing definitions of distance education can drive the practice and research in the field in a direction that can either disadvantage a large segment of the population or embrace a segment that advanced technologies have traditionally disadvantaged. (Contains 1 table.)