Gene-specific repression of transcription plays a central role in gene regulation. This is true for the spatial control of gene activity in development, during which boundaries of gene expression are often determined by the spatially restricted localization or activity of transcriptional repressors (Mannervik et al. 1999). It is also true for the control of gene expression by extracellular signals, in which genes are often maintained in an off state by repressor proteins until signal transduction alleviates the repression (e.g., Roose and Clevers 1999). One of the most useful ways of categorizing repressors is according to whether they mediate long-range or short-range repression (Gray and Levine 1996b). In longrange repression, a repressor makes a promoter resistant to the influence of all enhancers, even if those enhancers are located thousands of base pairs from the repressor binding site. This kind of repression is often referred to as silencing because an entire chromosomal locus is inactivated. In contrast, short-range repressors function in a less general manner. Rather than interfering with all transcription at a locus, they block the function of nearby DNA-bound activators while not interfering with more distantly bound activators. In this review, we discuss examples of both long-range and short-range repression, showing that long-range repression may often involve the assembly of a multiprotein complex termed a repressosome that is analogous in many ways to the enhanceosomes known to mediate activation. Furthermore, we discuss how both long-range and short-range repression may involve the recruitment of histone deacetylases to the template and discuss models that may allow these enzymes to mediate both types of repression. Finally, we consider the possibility that interactions between repressors and the basal machinery as well as between repressors and activators play roles in long-range and short-range repression.