This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book explores the discourses and applications of autonomy and independence for language learning and examines where the concepts have come from and where they are going. It shows that there are different versions of autonomy and independence and different ways of implementing them, and that each way leads into fields of debate where widely accepted assumptions about language teaching and language learning are open to question. Although autonomy and independence have deep historical roots in both western and eastern philosophies, it is primarily in their western form that we know of them in language education. The promotion of autonomy in language learning has links to developments elsewhere in the field of education and has been sustained and nourished by innovative work in the field of self-directed learning and self-access.