Designed for both experienced and novice adult educators who want to improve their own communication and that of their students, this essay presents information on communicative competence and its importance for lifelong learning. First, communicative competence is defined as the ability of persons to be adaptive, flexible, and sensitive to the demands of other persons and of different situational contexts. The essay next applies three principles of competence to processes of lifelong learning: (1) the ability to formulate and achieve objectives; (2) the ability to collaborate effectively with others, i.e., to be interdependent; and (3) the ability to adapt appropriately to situational and environmental variations. Finally, the benefits of effective communication for the teaching and learning of adults are described. Problems due to the lack of competence and benefits resulting from the presence of competence are identified for each part of a basic communication model. (YLB)