A growing concern is that our nation is failing to provide a technology infrastructure for K-12 education that will enable graduates to compete in the information-based economy of the 21st century. The Living Textbook project is designed to deliver real-time, multimedia information on demand for use in classroom instruction. Three pilot schools in upstate New York and three in New York City have been linked by a wide area network with technology housed at Syracuse University's Northeast Parallel Architectures Center (NPAC). This paper outlines the project's view of a high-performance-computing-and-communications (HPCC) approach to delivering information on demand. It discusses trends in the capacity and speed of HPCC while also describing specific NPAC technologies like InfoMall, a state-funded program enabling technology transfer, and InfoVision, a suite of client/server information-on-demand applications. Short-term goals for the Living Textbook project include a video library searchable and available on-line, an interactive multimedia journey through New York State geography, telemedicine linking rural health care facilities with university hospital specialists, and related educational applications. (BEW)