Charting new directions for Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR), this report emphasizes the need for leadership, uniformity, transparency and discipline in the regulatory process. It offers an historical perspective of the regulatory-reform process and analyzes the initiative proposed by the National Performance Review, to move toward guiding principles rather than prescriptive rules. Although the report's authors agree with the National Performance Review that the FAR system is profoundly flawed, they take issue with the proposed remedy of guiding principles, and instead propose a comprehensive agenda for FAR reform.