For more than 50 years, the RAND Corporation has pursued its nonprofit mission by conducting research on importand and complicated problems. Initially, RAND (the name of which was derived from a contraction of the term research and development) focused on issues of national security. Eventually, RAND expanded its intellectual reserves to offer insight into other areas, such as business, education, health, law, and science. RAND's innovative approach to problem solving has become the benchmark for all other "think tanks" that followed. Hot Topics in RAND Research analyzes education and world issues.