In the last two decades, progress in cereal genomics has been remarkable, enabling a better understanding of the structure and function of the cereal genomes. However, significant advances mainly concerned rice and maize, whereas for the Triticeae species, namely wheat, barley and rye, the development of genomic tools and resources has long been hampered by the size and the complexity of their genomes. Recently, new technologies have allowed the development of a toolbox for Triticeae genomics comparable to what is available for rice and maize. Triticeae scientists and breeders can now benefit from a wide range of tools, including molecular markers, genetic maps, EST sequences, microrarrays, BAC libraries and transformation systems that can be applied to structural, functional, evolutionary and comparative genomic studies of the Triticeae genomes.