As parents and partners, employees and bosses, citizens and leaders, we constantly confront a bewildering array of expectations as well as a confusing assortment of expert opinions on what each of these roles entails. Surveying the expert "literatures", Robert Kegan brings them together to reveal what these many demands have in common. What emerges from these pages is a theory of evolving ways of knowing that allows us to view adult development much as we view child development, as an open-ended process born of the dynamic interaction of cultural demands and emerging mental capabilities.