The principal concern of this paper is the implication of the increasing diversity of higher education provision in South Africa for equity of access and opportunity for historically disadvantaged social groups, high-quality provision, and social and economic responsiveness in distance higher education. This diversity is signalled by a variety of modes of delivery and learning/teaching methods, and the use of various terms to depict these. The article addresses this concern through an engagement with critical distance higher education policy issues, such as institutional differentiation and roles, the institutional location of distance education provision, the development of expertise and resources, the financing of distance provision and its quality assurance, and the monitoring and evaluation of the performance of distance education providers. In the course of this engagement the article also addresses a number of key themes that recur across the various policy documents produced during the past decade of democracy in South Africa.