The Cotton Improvement Laboratory (CIL), Texas Agricultural Experiment Station, has developed Extra Long Staple Upland (ELSU), Gossypium hirsutum, cotton that equals the length of American pima, G. barbadense, and has made meaningful progress in developing uplands with fiber bundle strength equaling pima. Three strategies employed to accomplish these goals are [1] intraspecific hybridization, upland x upland, followed by pedigree strategies, [2] mutation of TAM 94L-25, a high quality germplasm released in 1998 (Smith, 1998), and [3] interspecific hybridization, the most successful to date being G. hirsutum x G. barbadense biotype sea island. Each of these strategies have resulted in the following: [1] Intraspecific: Development of 70 ELSU strains with fiber length 17% greater than average medium staple cultivars, fiber bundle strength equal or exceeding all current cultivars, and 50s yarn count quality better than FiberMax 832 or the average of 50 California Acala cultivars and lines; [2] Mutagenesis: Approximately 300 TAM 94L-25M4 strains with individual plant fiber lengths as much as 22% greater than average medium staple cultivars, fiber bundle strengths as much as 25% greater than the best current cultivar; and [3] Interspecific: Over 300 Recombinant Inbred Interspecific Lines (RIIL) with fiber quality variability equaling strategies 1 and 2. Fiber, yield, and limited combining ability data will be presented.