A 2012 report from the U.S. National Research Council calls for a new focus on glycoscience, a field that explores the structures and functions of glycans and promises great advances in areas as diverse as medicine, energy generation, and materials science. Until now, glycans have received little attention from the research community due to a lack of tools to probe their often complex structures and properties. The report presents a roadmap for transforming glycoscience from a field dominated by specialists to a widely studied and integrated discipline.