The face of aging in the United States is changing dramatically. People are living longer, achieving higher levels of education and experiencing increasingly lower rates of disability. Life expectancy nearly doubled during the 20th Century with a ten-fold increase in the number of Americans age 65 or older. Our health care, insurance, and retirement systems face the daunting task of meeting the needs of a rising number of diverse population groups, and the impact of an increasingly diverse elderly population on our communities is not fully understood. To meet these challenges, the NIA strongly supports the development of a diverse workforce of talented researchers and clinician scientists in aging and geriatrics. Researchers from diverse backgrounds can provide a valuable perspective on the development of approaches to promote health and limit disability in our diverse population of older adults.