Future colliders that require low‐emittance highly‐polarized electron beams are the main motivation for developing a polarized rf gun. However there are both technical and physics issues in generating highly polarized electron beams using rf guns that remain to be resolved. The PWT design offers promising features that may facilitate solutions to technical problems such as field emission and poor vacuum. Physics issues such as emission time now seem to be satisfactorily resolved. Other issues, such as the effect of magnetic fields at the cathode—both those associated with the rf field and those imposed by schemes to produce flat beams—are still open questions. Potential solution of remaining problems will be discussed in the context of the PWT design. © 2003 American Institute of Physics