The founder and director of the Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth (SMPY) at Johns Hopkins University discusses reasons why acceleration is a desirable educational strategy with highly gifted youth. Cases of successful radical acceleration by mathematically gifted youth illustrate the advantages to be gained by many others if the practice of acceleration were to increase. Enrichment is not as effective an educational approach for mathematically gifted students. The real difficulties of individualizing instruction enough to meet the needs of all children in a class make acceleration a more workable approach. Creativity and problem-solving skills cannot be taught effectively when divorced from subject matter content. SMPY's program is a direct approach to preventing the frustration and boredom of many gifted students while maximizing their abilities. Acceleration as implemented by more flexible curricula, subject matter, and grade placement is encouraged by SMPY. (DB)