Over the last few years, both of the authors, and also most others in the field of stochastic programming, have said that what we need more than anything just now is a basic textbook — a textbook that makes the area available not only to mathematicians, but also to students and other interested parties who cannot or will not try to approach the field via the journals. We also felt the need to provide an appropriate text for instructors who want to include the subject in their curriculum. It is probably not possible to write such a book without assuming some knowledge of mathematics, but it has been our clear goal to avoid writing a text readable only for mathematicians. We want the book to be accessible to any quantitatively minded student in business, economics, computer science and engineering, plus, of course, mathematics.