AbstractAlthough bone development during embryogenesis and bone repair after injury have a number of features which appear similar, they are distinctly different processes which involve separate controlling elements and cuing parameters. Repair of bone is influenced by bioactive factors which reside in bone itself; some of these factors are not present when embryonic mesenchymal cells first differentiate. For example, a bone protein which induces the conversion of mesenchymal cells into cartilage cells is not present in the embryo at the site where cartilage first differentiates into the anlagen for future bone. Ultimately, the sequence of cellular and molecular events which controls the success of bone repair is dependent on the prior embryologic and developmental packaging of bioactive factors into bone and the release of these factors at a bone break site. The success of the reparative events depends not only upon the release of these bone‐derived factors but also on systemic factors and the identity and numbers of responding cells at the repair site.