This two-part special issue does not presume to set the nation's research agenda on violence against women (VAW), nor is it the first attempt to contribute to how that agenda might be informed. Instead, this issue continues the dialogue about the empirical study of VAW started by and participated in by many others before. Any attempt at something so important, with such an auspicious title, carries with it the acknowledged risk of being considered inadequate. However, no cause of this complexity has ever been achieved by ignoring its challenges. In 2002, the University of Kentucky Center for Research on Violence Against Women was formed and undertook as part of its mission offering a contribution to the national research agenda. With that aim, a research conference was held in the fall of 2003. The conference commissioned 10 papers on select contemporary questions regarding VAW, asking each author to synopsize the extant literature and to identify needs for future empirical study. Discussants were then solicited to respond to those plenary presentations at the October event. The commissioned papers were formulated around major empirical questions, including: (1) What is VAW? (2) What are its primary health and mental health consequences? (3) Does the legal system provide safety for women? (4) What do women need to know about risk?(5) How does substance use play a role? (6) What are the implications of race and ethnicity with respect to abuse perpetration? (7) Is there a common typology for offenders? and (8) How can researchers and advocates collaborate toward the common end of quality research? The commissioned papers and the discussant responses that followed them are collected in this two-part special issue.