When we wrote the first edition of this book, we had four goals in mind: (1) to create a book that would help people make better financial decisions, (2) to motivate students by demonstrating that finance is both interesting and relevant, (3) to make the book clear enough for students to go through the material without wasting time trying to figure out what we were trying to say, and (4) to provide a book that covers the core material necessary for a one-semester introductory MBA course but without all the other interesting-but-not-essential material that is contained in most MBA texts. Finance theory and applications have dramatically expanded during the past decade, and so have finance textbooks, including some that we have written. As a result, professors teaching the introductory MBA course must choose between breadth and depth. They can assign most of the chapters in one of the other textbooks and teach finance as a survey course, going for breadth at the expense of depth. Alternatively, they can cover fewer chapters (and parts of chapters), explore them in depth, and ignore the remaining chapters. We learned from a review of course syllabi that the vast majority of professors, including us, choose the second alternative. Finance majors will probably cover much of the omitted material in later courses, but nonmajors end up having to buy a larger, more expensive book than they need. Also, instructors must make difficult choices, including having to decide what parts of selected chapters are most important. Drawing upon our own classroom experience, we wrote Corporate Finance for those professors who want to cover the critical finance topics in depth but not require their students to purchase chapters that will not be covered.