The mathematical works of Lars Ahlfors and Lipman Bers are fundamental and lasting. They have influenced and altered the development of twentieth century mathematics. The personalities of these two scientists helped create a mathematical family and have had a permanent positive effect on a whole generation of mathematicians. Their mathematical heritage continues to lead succeeding generations. In the fall of 1994, one year after Bers' death, some members of this family decided to inaugurate a series of conferences, "The Bers Colloquium", to be held every three years. The theme was to be a topic in the Ahlfors-Bers mathematical tradition, broadly interpreted. Ahlfors died a year after the first colloquium; future colloquia in this series will be called "The Ahlfors-Bers Colloquium". The first colloquium was held in October 1995 at the Graduate Center, CUNY in New York. It coincided roughly with the second anniversary of Ber's death. There were six lectures and much informal mathematical discussion. This volume contains papers by the speakers and many of the participants. The broad range of papers indicate how strong and far reaching Ber's influence has been. The topics represented in the book include Teichmuller theory, Kleinian groups, higher dimensional hyperbolic geometry, geometry of numbers, circle packings, theory of discrete groups, classical complex function theory, one dimensional dynamics, fluid dynamics, quasiconformal mappings in higher dimensions, partial differential equations, and classical algebraic geometry. partial