The current US scientific and technological capacity is largely the result of a partnership forged between the federal and state governments, business and academia since WWII. The partnership provides the funding to attract extraordinarily talented men and women to the field, construct and maintain a physical infrastructure for exploration and discovery, and establish mechanisms to move the findings out of the laboratory into everyday life, yielding much of our contemporary economy and national security. This course surveys the history of this partnership and its policies, evaluates its effectiveness, and reviews the challenges to the partnership.