A promising model for the compact, intense X-ray sources discovered in the 1960s was that of a neutron star or black hole drawing in (“accreting”) gas from its surroundings (Prendergast and Burbidge, 1968). Such gas always accretes with a finite amount of angular momentum relative to the central object, and so it must first form a rotating disk — it cannot accrete directly onto the object without first losing its angular momentum. But how an element of gaseous fluid managed to lose its angular momentum and spiral onto the central object was not at all obvious.