Our understanding of the mechanisms that control gastrulation is still in its infancy. One problem is that gastrulation is a complex set of coordinated behaviours involving directional cell movements, several types of cell interactions, changes in cell fate and gene expression. Therefore, the successful analysis of its control mechanisms requires simultaneous analysis of more than one of these, or at least some way of separating them. Although progress has been slow, some recent studies have made significant advances in the field and we can probably look forward to some major breakthroughs in the near future.