Abstract The Materials Microcharacterization Collaboratory (MMC) was created last year as a pilot project within the US Department of Energy's DOE2000 program. The DOE2000 program has three main goals: improved ability to solve DOE's complex scientific problems, increased R&D productivity and efficiency, and enhanced access to DOE resources by R&D partners. One of the strategies to meet these goals is the construction of national collaboratories. These provide integration on the Internet of unique or expensive DOE research facilities and expertise for remote collaboration, experimentation, production, software development, modeling, or measurement. In addition, collaboratories will benefit researchers by providing tools for video conferencing, shared data-viewing, and collaborative analysis. Cooperative pilots projects, jointly funded by DOE2000 and a scientific program area, are expected to lead to clear success in the scientific environment: they are to provide new capabilities and to increase the efficiency of doing the work (e.g., reduce travel, increase communication, provide for sharing of data among formerly disparate environments).