In observing its 40th anniversry last year, the National Science Foundation held a special symposium to celebrate its achievements and to look ahead to the next 40 years for the foundation as well as for all of science and technology in America. NSF's accomplishments are impressive. These include a major role in producing successive generations of scientists and engineers; in supporting pace‐setting research in a multitude of fields, including some, such as high‐temperature superconductivity, that it did much to initiate; and in monitoring the pulse of the nation's science and engineering enterprise.