This publication describes in collaborative efforts to conserve, document, and characterize seed collections of maize from the Americas over the last decade, as reported in a workshop at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), June 1-5, 1998, and involving participants from North, Central, and South America and the Caribbean. Topics covered include methodologies for forming breeder-targeted core subsets of large seed collections and a specific subset developed based on agronomic evaluations and other data for collections from the Latin American Maize Project (LAMP1986-1996). Status reports on collections held in 13 countries of the region are provided, as well as recommendations for further efforts.