It was timely that the 1999 International Year of Older Persons (IYOP) occurred in the last year of the century because the purpose of the year is to celebrate ageing achievements as well as to produce positive sustainable change for the future. Thus it affords an opportunity to assess the status of ageing in Australia as a result of developments up to that point, as well as providing an indication of where ageing research, policy and practice is headed in the new century. This paper examines the IYOP in Australia as a measure of achievements to date, and then focuses on its major output, the proposed National Strategy for an Ageing Australia, as a look ahead. This follows a brief review of some socio-demographic data on ageing in Australia at the end of the century, and a summary of research on ageing as recorded in the Australian Ageing Research Directory (Office for the Aged 1993, 1996).