Adult learning is not a tidy business: adults fit learning into the spaces left by the other demands on complex lives, and into the spaces left in administrative structures overwhelmingly designed for other people. No simple metric can capture adults' diverse purposes and achievements, and no single programme can capture the full range of things adults want and need to learn. Adults learn to sustain their lives and to transform them; to develop a skill, scratch a curiosity, or change the world. The wider challenges facing Britain in the years ahead all point to a need for lifelong learning. But, as he prepares to leave NIACE after 23 years at the helm, the author finds there is much still to do to realise the potential of adult learning in helping people rise to these challenges.