The purpose of cultural resource management is not to stop construction projects. However awful a project may be from an environmental or aesthetic or economic standpoint, it shouldn't be stopped by cultural resources as long as those resources have been properly attended to in the planning process. Cultural resource managers are concerned with trying to get agencies to comply with the law and protect historic, prehistoric, and other cultural properties while going on with the jobs that they are organized to do--not with stopping projects per se. The purpose of this article is to provide a sort of primer to utilize the laws and policies mandating the protection of cultural resources.