In addition to a thorough treatment of fundamental algebraic concepts, this text engages students through motivating questions, applications with a real-world and cultural context, mathematical notes, individual or group projects for enrichment, and questions for discussion or essay. It fully integrates graphing calculators, but does not contain keystroke-specific instructions in the text. Thus, instructors and students can use graphing utilities such as graphing calculators or DERIVE software. A lab manual with instructions for TI, Sharp, Casio and HP calculators and DERIVE software is available with specific text problems worked out in detail. The authors also incorporate spiraling and numeracy, and have written this text with NCTM and AMATYC standards in mind.