Increasing the delivered performance of computers by running programs in parallel is an old idea with a new urgency. Multi cores (multi processors) on chips have emerged as a way to increase performance wherever chips are used. The talk will focus on the role programming languages and compilers must play in delivering parallel performance to users and applications. The speaker's personal experiences with languages and compilers for high performance systems will provide the basis for her observations. The talk is intended to encourage the exploration of new approaches.