The Barnett, Ziegler, Byleen College Algebra series is designed to be user friendly and to maximize student comprehension. The goal of this series is to emphasize computational skills, ideas, and problem solving rather than mathematical theory. The large number of pedagogical devices employed in this text will guide a student through the course. Integrated throughout the text, the students and instructors will find Explore-Discuss boxes which encourage students to think critically about mathematically concepts. In each section, the worked examples are followed by matched problems that reinforce the concept being taught. In addition, the text contains an abundance of exercises and applications that will convince students that math is useful.