Bright electron beams enable electron microscopy, brilliant X-ray sources, and collisions that probe the interactions of elementary particles. They are also essential for semiconductor device fabrication, the sterilization of medical equipment and the production of heat shrink tubing and tires. Achieving increased brightness and extending the scientific and industrial reach of these beams poses basic scientific questions about beam production, acceleration and transport, whose answers will require expertise spanning disciplines from ab initio physics, materials science, surface chemistry, and mathematics to accelerator physics. A new NSF Science and Technology Center, the Center for Bright Beams, has been formed to do exactly this. The colloquium will present some of the key scientific questions involved in producing and using future bright beams and Center for Bright Beams early results.