<正> It was the intention of this paper to show some recent developments in thin layer chroma-togrphy aiming at increasing the separation efficiency by instrumental means and techniquesusing existing separation layers. Gradient elution in the normal phase is a most efficient wayto achieve this goal. Multi-dimensional separations by coupling gradient elution column liquid chromatography inthe reversed phase with AMD gradient elution in normal phase is suitable to achieve newdimensions of separation numbers. Assuming that the N numbers reported for HPLC translateinto separation numbers near 100, by coupling the two kinds of chromatography, separationnumbers around 500 become practically usable.