Future nanodevices and systems based on electrical, optical, magnetic, mechanical, chemical and biological structures hold the promise of tremendous benefits for humankind. These developments are enabled by a remarkable confluence of technology from opposing length scales. Coming down from the micrometer and into the nanometer scale is the relentless push for miniaturization by the semiconductor industry (Moore’ Law). Coming up from the picometer atomic scale and into the nanometer scale are the tremendous progress in biology and large-molecule chemistry. At the intersection of these scales researchers are generating many interesting discoveries. It is prudent to ask, however, how many of these breakthroughs will remain laboratory curiosities and how many will proceed to widespread industrialization. History teaches that a metrology infrastructure has underpinned all industrial revolutions. Efficient mass production depends on a means for manufacturing process control. In turn this requires a means for rapid and inexpensive measurement of such critical manufacturing parameters as the dimensions of device features. Nanotechnology is not exempt from these fundamental considerations. For example, nanosystems manufactured with 10 nanometer critical dimensions (CD) will require a metrology infrastructure capable of rapid measurement of the size and location of features to an accuracy of ~20% of the CD, or 2 nm. Such technology is nonexistent, and our current toolkit, based on traditional electron and photon optics, seems inadequate for the task. For these reasons nanosystems based on self-assembly schemes and fault-tolerant architectures are particularly attractive. In this presentation the limitations conventional metrology tools will be reviewed and potential future tools will be discussed