The National Cotton Quality Improvement Program focuses efforts of ARS and associated research groups on those targets which will benefit the industry--grower, ginner and textile plant--the most. The No. 1 objective is to fill in the gaps in the grading technology needed to fix the value of each bale of cotton for the textile plant. Changes in the grading and marketing system, beginning in 1991 and continuing to the mid-90's, will bring major changes in the machinery and in the way gins are operated. Several new machine and process-control concepts, currently under investigation, are described.