The meeting entitled Receptor Activation by Antigens, Cytokines, Hormones, and Growth Factors was one of the best meetings I have attended in my scientific career. It was remarkable because it brought together so many top scientists from so many separate fields. Even more important, most of these people participated throughout the meeting. As a result, the formal presentations were first-rate, and the discussions were sparkling. Many of the perplexing issues that I had been preoccupied with for many years regarding interleukin 2 (IL-2) signaling were finally resolved as a consequence of this meeting. Therefore, I have elected to summarize my current concepts of how the IL-2R operates, instead of detailing my oral presentation at the meeting, which concerned isolation and characterization of cytokine response (CR) genes.