The brain must guide immediate responses to beneficial and harmful stimuli while simultaneously writing memories for future reference. Both immediate actions and reinforcement learning are instructed by dopamine. However, it is unknown how dopaminergic systems maintain coherence between these two reward functions. Optogenetic activation experiments showed that the dopamine neurons that inform olfactory memory in Drosophila have a distinct, parallel function driving attraction and aversion (valence). Sensory neurons required for olfactory memory were dispensable to dopaminergic valence. A broadly projecting set of dopaminergic cells had valence that was dependent on dopamine, glutamate, and octopamine. Similarly, a more restricted dopaminergic cluster with attractive valence was reliant on dopamine and glutamate; flies avoided opto-inhibition of this narrow subset, indicating their role in controlling ongoing behavior. Dopamine valence was distinct from output-neuron opto-valence in locomotor pattern, strength, and polarity. Overall our data suggest that dopamine’s acute effect on valence provides a mechanism by which a dopaminergic system can coherently write memories to influence future responses while guiding immediate attraction and aversion.