We consider the dynamical systems arising from substitution tilings. Under some hypotheses, we show that the dynamics of the substitution or inflation map on the space of tilings is topologically conjugate to a shift on a stationary inverse limit, i.e. one of R. F. Williams' generalized solenoids. The underlying space in the inverse limit construction is easily computed in most examples and frequently has the structure of a CW-complex. This allows us to compute the cohomology and K-theory of the space of tilings. This is done completely for several one- and two-dimensional tilings, including the Penrose tilings. This approach also allows computation of the zeta function for the substitution. We discuss $C^*$-algebras related to these dynamical systems and show how the above methods may be used to compute the K-theory of these.