In 2011, we organized a symposium at the Society for American Archaeology’s 76th Annual Meeting in Sacramento, California. Entitled “Chasing Rainbows from the Great Basin to the Paci c Shore: Honoring the Accomplishments, Innovations and Contributions of C. William Clewlow, Jr.,” the symposium included 13 papers. these ranged from substantive summaries of Clewlow’s own contributions to presentations of new research that were inspired or in uenced by his work. Representative papers by six of the participants are included here. While ve of these are essentially the same papers that were presented at the conference, the paper by David Hurst thomas has been substantially reworked for this issue. In addition to the authors whose contributions are included here, Clarus Backes, Colin Busby, Shelly Davis-King, Susan Hector, James F. o’Connell, and David S. Whitley participated in the symposium. Russell Kaldenberg presented an overview of Billy’s life and career; Carolyn Shepherd and Billy Clewlow himself provided ending and summary comments.