This unique book highlights the state of the art of the booming field of atomic physics in the early 21st century. It contains the majority of the invited papers from an ongoing series of conferences, held every two years, devoted to forefront research and fundamental studies in basic atomic physics, broadly defined. This conference, held at the University of Connecticut in July 2008, is part of a series of conferences, which began in 1968 and had its historical origins in the molecular beam conferences of the I. I. Rabi group. It provides an archival and up-to-date summary of current research on atoms and simple molecules as well as their interactions with each other and with external fields, including degenerate Bose and Fermi quantum gases and interactions involving ultrafast lasers, strong field control of X-ray processes, and nanoscale and mesoscopic quantum systems. The work of three recent Nobel Laureates in atomic physics is included, beginning with a lecture by Eric Cornell on When Is a Quantum Gas a Quantum Liquid? . There are also papers by Laureates Steven Chu and Roy Glauber. The volume also contains the IUPAP Young Scientist Prize lecture by Cheng Chin on Exploring Universality of Few-Body Physics Based on Ultracold Atoms Near Feshbach Resonances .