CKM Status and Prospects

This presentation reviews the Standard Model formalism governing the weak decays of quarks, as embodied in the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa (CKM) weak mixing matrix, and summarizes the experimental status and outlook. Two recent CLEO V_cb analyses are described. Complications from strong interactions in relating the experimentally accessible quantities to CKM elements are highlighted, and prospects for addressing those difficulties with LQCD and CLEO-c are outlined.