The APO Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE) used high-resolution, high signal-to-noise infrared spectroscopy to penetrate the dust that obscures the inner Galaxy. APOGEE surveyed 100,000 red giant stars across the full range of the galactic bulge, bar, disk, and halo. It increased the number of stars observed at high spectroscopic resolution (R ~ 20,000 at λ ~ 1.6μm) and high signal-to-noise ratio (S/N ~ 100) by more than a factor of 100. The high resolution spectra revealed the abundances of about 15 elements, giving information on the composition of the gas clouds the red giants formed from. APOGEE planned to collect data from 2011 to 2014, with first release of data in July 2013.