Economic development programmes in rural Alaska face barriers created by ethnic and cultural variations from the standards of urban, industrialized Western society and by the virtual absence among the native population of the local capital and technical capabilities that are needed to achieve economic self-sufficiency. In addition, public and private agencies inevitably assume a dominant role, with respect to the local population, when they invest in or assist native villages or rural regions, a fact that compounds the problems of change. The objective of modernization may get in the way of the objective of self-determination, to the detriment of both. These problems confront programmes for vocational training, housing, transportation, community facilities, community organization, co-operative enterprises and small business development —virtually the entire range of programmes intended to support or to trigger further development and ultimately to increase self-sufficiency in Alaska's native villages and rural regions.