This volume contains the Proceedings of the Third International EXAFS Conference, hosted by Stanford University and the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory on July 16-20, 1984. The meeting, co-chaired by Professors Arthur Bienensk and Keith Hodgson, was attended by over 200 scientists representing a wide range of scientific disciplines. The format of the meeting consisted of 51 invited presentations and four days of poster sessions. This Proceedings is a compilation of 139 contributions from both invited speakers and authors of contributed posters. The last ten years has seen the rapid maturation of x-ray absorption spectrosco­ pyas a scientific discipline. The vitality of the field is reflected in the diver­ sity of applications found in the Proceedings. Recent work continues to probe the limits of x-ray spectroscopy, with proven techniques being extended to, for examp­ le, very low or high energy studies, to very dilute systems, and to studies of surface structure. In fact, the title of the conference does not at all reflect the breadth of the science discussed at this meeting. The number of fields in which x­ ray absorption spectroscopy is finding applications has increased dramatically even in the two years since the previous International Conference held in Frascati*. The prospects for continued growth and innovation will be even further enhanced if a new generation 6 GeV storage ring is constructed in the next five years.