Mid–August in Washington, D.C. can be hot and humid, but the weather was bright and clear during the “Workshop on High Resolution Cold Neutron Spectroscopy” held qt the reactor on the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Gaithersburg campus from August 13–15, 1997. For the approximately thirty arriving participants, mostly young scientists, the fine weather was a metaphor for the experience of the next three days. Like any good summer diversion, those days were packed with activities from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., which included, along with the expected lectures and tour of the gleaming cold neutron guide hall, “hands–on” sessions i n which the visitors performed experiments on two of the facility's instruments. These carefully planned exercises were the keys to the success of the workshop, demonstrating both the power of neutrons as a probe of condensed matter and introducing the visiting scientists in a realistic way to the details of instrumental use and data reduction.