In recent years, there has been increasing interest and activity in the area of group actions on affine and projective algebraic varieties. Tech­ niques from various branches of mathematics have been important for this study, especially those coming from the well-developed theory of smooth compact transformation groups. It was timely to have an interdisciplinary meeting on these topics. We organized the conference "Topological Methods in Alg~braic Transformation Groups," which was held at Rutgers University, 4-8 April, 1988. Our aim was to facilitate an exchange of ideas and techniques among mathematicians studying compact smooth transformation groups, alge­ braic transformation groups and related issues in algebraic and analytic geometry. The meeting was well