This article describes the evolution of community pharmacy in the Australian health system, and assesses its current and potential future contribution to health care. A central theme is the unique extent and accessibility of community pharmacy to the public, with a vast and dispersed infrastructure that is funded by private enterprise. The viability of community pharmacy as a retail trade depends on a diversification of its service roles and retention of its product-supply roles. Initiatives by the pharmacy profession, the pharmacy industry and the Australian Government are likely to give community pharmacy an increasingly prominent place in health promotion and primary, secondary and tertiary prevention, especially in relation to the management of chronic diseases.