The Education Working Paper Series is produced by the Education Unit at the World Bank (HDNED). It provides an avenue for World Bank staff to publish and disseminate preliminary education findings to encourage discussion and exchange ideas within the World Bank and among the broader development community. Throughout the 1990s and into the present decade, Chile's educational system has undergone major changes. After a prolonged seventeen year authoritarian military regime, three successive democratic governments and the country's economic and political elites identified education as strategic for achieving economic development and a more just and integrated society. Public and private educational expenditure increased in the context of economic growth, political stability, and consensual policies--by as much as threefold. Between 1990 and 2003, major programs for both educational quality and equity improvement were agreed upon and implemented, based on a set of reforms to the curriculum, school hours, and institutional regulations (e.g. the teaching profession). This case study examines secondary educational reform in a favorable social and political context--one of consensus and continuity and in which education received high political priority and resources--by examining its policy process, contents, implementation, and results. The viewpoint is that of the government, in terms of: diagnosing needs and designing and implementing policies and programs, reforming institutions, interpreting results, building agreements, and negotiating conflict. (Contains 70 footnotes, 34 tables, 17 figures, and 2 boxes.) [An initial draft of this paper was developed as part of the collective effort that led to the publication of "Expanding Opportunities and Building Competencies for Young People: A New Agenda for Secondary Education" (World Bank 2005). For Number 2 in the Education Working Paper Series, see ED493641.]