This report describes multimedia in the United States: its current status and its background, business, and a regulatory context. Current developments in multimedia are rooted in a series of trials and experiments in videotex and teletext over the past 15 years. They were essentially the forerunners of today's computer-based on-line services. One recent experiment revealed that the most successful multimedia products contained four elements: entertainment, transactions, communication, and information. Perhaps the most complete demonstration of multimedia production today is found in CD-ROM disks, which often combine still pictures, video clips, sound, text, and graphics in a flexible, highly accessible format. The expectations among business executives predicts that movies on demand, home shopping, and networked video games, and various other services will be at the top of the list. Being a new field, multimedia inevitably brings a high degree of risks exemplified by the many innovative dead-ends in its past. A central fact is that the vaunted information superhighway is taking shape as a giant interactive multimedia transmission system. Cable television companies and the traditional telephone companies are locked in combat, each industry seeking dominance in the information infrastructure. The Regional Bell Operating Companies are seeking programming alliances with major Hollywood interests while the cable companies have been active in the development of wireless services. Other major industry interests are also concerned with multimedia development such as the computer, publishing, and broadcast industries. The progress of interactive multimedia in the United States is firmly tied to the National Information Infrastructure (NII) being somewhat based on the concept that new technology and market forces have led to a convergence of once separate communications industries. This convergence requires new regulatory framework based on private investment, competition, open access, universal service, and regulatory flexibility.