Self-paced training in the Air Force has not met with the success that had been anticipated from the controlled experiments with self-pacing reported in both the civilian and military literature. The reasons for this lack of wide-scale success were systematically investigated to identify those factors that are critical to the success of the self-paced course. Administrative and instructional factors were hypothesized from a review of the literature and were investigated through case studies of 12 courses at four Air Force technical bases. The results of this study show that it is not one but a combination of factors that primarily influences success and that management factors are more important in Air Force technical training than in the training reported in the general literature. Based on a success model generated by the study, six recommendations are provided for enhancing the successful implementation of self-paced instruction. (Author).