In a number of situations and applications, the tribological wear of ceramic and minerallike surfaces is often greatly enhanced in the presence of a corrosive fluid. Examples are the wear of surfaces associated with joints (biomaterials) subject to and the extremely active application to high density circuit production which requires chemical mechanical polishing (CMP). The physics and chemistry of these enhanced wear rates are needed to reduce wear and to improve and extend CMP to new applications. In both situations, surfaces experience simultaneous tribological loading and corrosive chemical exposure, which together produce high wear rates and altered topography. In CMP, the goal is to efficiently achieve very flat surfaces. As feature sizes diminish further, it is conceivable that atomically flat surfaces will be necessary. In almost all tribological situations, it is the interaction of asperities, often micron and sub-micron in dimensions, that control the wear processes due to the high stresses associated with these small structures.