This article charts the promissory notes and concerns related to college-level online education as reflected in the educational literature. It is argued that, to appreciate the potential and limitations of online education, we need to trace the issues that bind online education with distance education. The article reviews the history of distance education through the lenses of three historical themes--democratization, liberal education, and educational quality--and charts the current scene of online education in terms of three educational visions that may inform the development of online initiatives: the presentational view, the performance-tutoring view, and the epistemic-engagement view. The article emphasizes the potential contributions of online education to democratization and the advancement of the scholarship of teaching. (Contains 1 note.)