The paradox of the Cooperative Agricultural Extension Service lies in the fact that it has made rural America economically and technologically wealthy while at the same time its human services have declined relative to the rest of the nation. The growth of an urban industrial society has resulted in a new view of agriculture as a business rather than a way of life; now there is greater interdependence between rural and urban sectors. The 68 colleges of agriculture of the State land grant universities are the unique contribution of American higher education, but decreasing effectiveness of State government weakens them. A summary of the basic strengths of Cooperative Extension reveals that expanding aspirations gave the rural movement its impetus but options which later developed were toward becoming either a broadened instrument of adult education or a specialized technical service. A new emphasis on management and marketing grew out of this. More recently the tendency has been to see the urban crisis and rural deprivation as aspects of the same issue and to confront the needs of the nation as a whole. This widens the scope of Cooperative Extension considerably and calls for major changes in its approach. (MS)