With heated global competition, the United States is in a marathon race to maintain an edge in fundamental areas of research and innovation. The National LambdaRail (NLR) initiative will provide critically needed high-speed network infrastructure for the next generation of research. Going beyond Internet and Internet2 technology, NLR will provide the resources for members across the nation to connect to a fiber optics network with supercomputing, storage and visualization capabilities suited to "big science" research. NLR will provide a national fiber optic backbone linking research universities and laboratories at gigabit and higher speeds. The NLR initiative is a partnership formed by many leading research universities and corporate networking entities throughout the United States.