It is now widely recognized that the packaging of genomic DNA, together with core histones, linker histones, and other functional proteins into chromatin profoundly influences nuclear processes such as transcription, replication, DNA repair, and recombination. How chromatin structure modulates the expression of knowledge encoded in eukaryotic genomes, and how these processes take place within the context of a highly complex and compacted genomic chromatin environment remains a major unresolved question in biology. Here we review recent advances in nucleosome structure and dynamics.