This booklet is one in a series that has been written for the general reader who wants to understand important trends in vocational education and training in Australia. Its focus is competency-based training and assessment. The booklet starts with the specific working environment of a blackjack dealer in a casino and explores the meaning of competency-based training and assessment in that context. In the second section, some general principles are extracted from that example. This leads to a discussion of one of the key issues--assessment in the workplace. The booklet then considers a particular approach to competency-based training and assessment and examines its benefits in a range of different occupations. Finally, some general ideas are developed about how to improve training and assessment by using the competency-based approach. An annotated list of 14 publications is provided for further reading. (YLB)