The Consortium for Research on Educational Access, Transitions and Equity (CREATE), was established with DFID [the UK Department for International Development] support in 2006. It is a partnership between research institutions in the UK, Bangladesh, India, Ghana and South Africa. This paper is the first in a series of CREATE publications which will be developed over the life of the consortium. The first part of this paper discusses why access issues remain at the centre of the problems of achieving Education for All and the Millennium Development Goals. Many children remain unenrolled at primary level, many of those enrolled attend irregularly and learn little, and large numbers fail to make the transition to secondary schooling. After outlining the magnitude of the challenge of improving access to universal levels, the paper develops analytic frameworks to understand access issues in new ways, and generate empirical studies related to each of the zones of exclusion identified. The last part of the paper briefly outlines some of the empirical research that is being developed. Two appendixes are included: (1) The Six Dakar Goals and the Eight MDGs [Millennium Development Goals]; and (2) Some Research Propositions. (Contains 21 footnotes, 2 tables, and 12 figures.)