Participants in this pediatric round table met to (l) detrivialize child care; (2) advance the concept of child care as a continuum of services; (3) establish the role of health care professionals in the design and implementation of high quality child care; and (4) develop action guidelines for use by professionals attempting to provide high quality care. The papers in part I are concerned with the various constituencies for child care: the needs of particular groups within the population, what is being done to meet those needs, and what is required to close the considerable gap between the need and the supply of services. Included is a consideration of parents' needs for information and how these needs can be met in the child care setting. Part II reviews the current state of support for child care. Papers in this section report on the progress that is being made at the governmental level, in the private sector, and among the public at large. The papers in part III are all involved with the nature of child care: the various forms in which it appears, the ways in which it interacts with other disciplines in providing comprehensive services to the children in child care, the features that constitute quality, and ways of helping child care providers achieve quality. The implications for training in various disciplines are an important focus of this group of papers. Guidelines for action are appended. (RH)