The NASA Transition Study Group was founded in late 1970 to develop and implement a program that would do something constructive toward resolving the many observed anomalies in boundary layer transition data and that might provide some basis for future estimation of transition Reynolds numbers. The group formulated specific experimental programs emphasizing careful and redundant measurements, documentation of the disturbance environment and eliminating, wherever possible, facility induced transition. It recommended continued study of stability characteristics as well as theoretical studies of the coupling of various types of disturbances to boundary layers. This paper describes the nature of the program and its details. The remainder of the papers of this session give some of the results obtained under the program to date.