One year ago, at the 1989 Beltwide Conference, the U.S. Cotton Insecticide Resistance Action Committee (IRAC-US) was formally convened. During 1989, almost all the cotton insecticide producing companies have designated representatives for the committee, which has met on two subsequent occasions. The Charter of IRAC-US is to act as an advisory body in providing technical information that should be useful in helping to overcome the problems of insecticide resistance in the production of cotton in the USA. The committee reports to the International IRAC which in turn has reporting relationships to GIFAP and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. The US committee will draw strongly on the guidance and experience of those organizations. At this stage, IRAC-US is drawing together all available information on cotton insecticide resistance so that this may be made universally available. It is also bringing together a list of standard protocols for use in testing for resistance against all the major cotton insect pests, and will maintain a file of standard resistance strains of these pests so that they may be made available as standard strains for resistance testing. The committee will work closely with University and official agencies across the cotton belt so that any information generated will be both practical and readily available. It is hoped that both laboratory and field studies can be undertaken in the near future.