Effective field theory is a general, and powerful, tool for analyzing physical systems with widely separated scales. It has proven to be an essential tool in the understanding particle physics phenomenology. In this talk, the basic ideas of effective field theory will be introduced. The principal focus of the talk will be on recent work aimed at applying this technique to low energy nuclear physics. To date, the approach has had both notable successes and dismal failures. Both the successes and the failures are interesting ; both give insights into nuclear dynamics.