Bangladesh is renowned for its chronic population woes. What is less well known is its recent success in controlling rapid population growth. Not only is this success significant for the people of Bangladesh, it has major implications for demographers, social scientists, policymakers, and population planners around the world. A real-fife laboratory for population researchers, the recent experience of this South Asian country disproves beliefs that birthrates drop only after economic conditions improve. It also refutes the contention that "development is the best contraceptive an idea expounded twenty-three years ago at the World Population Conference in Bucharest and revived some ten years later at the International Conference on Population in Mexico City (Popline 1994, 3). MY objectives here are to examine the changes in reproductive behavior in Bangladesh and to analyze the factors associated with the remarkable decline in fertility rates.