In March of 2006, The National Information Standards Organization (NISO) held a roundtable discussion at the National Library of Medicine with experts from a variety of areas where identifiers are created, used, and maintained. The purpose of the meeting was to articulate needs that might be met through standards or other activities that could be led by NISO. The attendees agreed that we need more information in our community generally about the technology of identifiers and their use in systems and services. Experts in the room talked of common misconceptions about identifiers and clarified definitions, as well as proposed solutions. The author presents some of those in this article.