The federal government faces an array of challenges and opportunities to enhance performance, ensure accountability, and position the nation for the future. A number of overarching trends, such as fiscal sustainability and debt challenges, demographic and societal changes, developments in science and technology, diffuse security threats, global interdependence, and the rapid expansion of collaborative networks, underscore the need for a fundamental reconsideration of the role, operations, and structure of the federal government for the 21st century.