Novel abrasion resistant coatings have been successfully prepared by the sol-gel method. These materials are spin coated onto bisphenol-A polycarbonate, diallyl diglycol carbonate resin (CR-39) sheet, aluminum, and steel substrates and are thermally cured to obtain a transparent coating of a few microns in thickness. Following the curing, the abrasion resistance is measured and compared with an uncoated control. It was found that these hybrid organic/inorganic networks partially afford excellent abrasion resistance to the polycarbonate substrates investigated. In addition to having excellent abrasion resistance comparable to current commercial coatings, some newly developed systems are also UV resistant. Similar coating formulations applied to metals can greatly improve the abrasion resistance despite the fact that the coatings are lower in density than their substrates.