Lipids are essential eukaryotic cellular constituents. Lipid metabolism has a strong impact on cell physiology, and despite good progress in this area, many important basic questions remain unanswered concerning the functional diversity of lipid species and on the mechanisms that cells employ to sense and adjust their lipid composition. Combining convenient experimental tractability, a large degree of conservation of metabolic pathways with other eukaryotes and the relative simplicity of its genome, proteome and lipidome, yeast represents the most advantageous model organism for studying lipid homeostasis and function. In this review we will focus on the importance of yeast as a model organism and some of the innovative advantages for the lipid research field.