Advances in the field of vibrational optical activity (VOA) are reviewed over the past decade. Topics are surveyed with an emphasis on the theoretical and instrumental progress in both vibrational circular dichroism (VCD) and Raman optical activity (ROA). Applications of VOA to stereochemical and biological problems are reviewed, with a bias toward new kinds of experiments made possible by theoretical and instrumental advances. In the field of VCD, the most notable advances have taken place in the quality and size of ab initio calculations of VOA intensities and in the quality of step-scan Fourier transform instrumentation. For ROA, the most dramatic progress has occurred in the areas of theoretical formulation and high-throughput instrumentation. Applications of VOA now include all major classes of biological and pharmaceutical molecules. VOA's importance as a diagnostic tool will likely grow as the control of molecular chirality increases in research and industrial areas.