As the fiftieth anniversary of the Advanced Placement Program[R] (AP[R]) in U.S. schools approaches, it is the right time to issue the first "Advanced Placement Report to the Nation." This report uses a combination of state, national, and AP Program data in new ways to provide each U.S. state with a context for celebrating its successes, understanding its unique challenges, and setting meaningful and data-driven goals to connect more students to college success. Part I of the "Report" comprises three powerful themes that appear once individuals situate each state's AP participation and performance data within the context of its own racial/ethnic demographics and population size. Because one of the chief purposes of Part I is to provide state departments of education with new data to gauge success and identify current challenges in providing equitable educational opportunities (and because current, reliable racial/ethnic demographic data for independent schools is not available for all states), the data in Part I represent public schools only. Part II of the "Report" uses data from all schools participating in AP worldwide, public and nonpublic, to identify schools currently leading the world in AP participation and performance, and to provide overall participation and performance information for each of the AP subject areas. Appended are: (1) Fast Facts about AP; (2) 2004 Summary of AP Participation and Performance in U.S. Public Schools; (3) Raw Numbers for Tables 1 and 2; and (4) Changes in Equity Gaps from 2000 to 2004. (Contains 3 tables, 5 figures and 12 endnotes.)