Dentistry is different from most professions and many of the current trends in American business because of its heavy dependence of tacit knowledge--the know-how that defies capture in explicit form. Many of the issues facing the profession today result from attempts to make oral health care more explicit so that it can be managed by those outside the profession. This is unlikely to proceed much farther than it has already. However, dentistry must still find ways of communicating the value of its services in explicit ways that the public will understand.