Technical Abstract: Grasses are a vital source of food for humanity and are projected to be become an important source of renewable fuel. To provide food, feed and fuel for an ever expanding human population it will be necessary to improve existing grass crops (e.g. wheat, maize, rice) and domesticate perennial grasses proposed as energy crops (e.g. switchgrass and Miscanthus). A deeper understanding of the biology underlying traits determining the utility of grasses as crops would greatly accelerate these efforts. The use of a model system is an efficient way to gain this insight. Brachypodium distachyon has emerged as such a model system. In this review we outline the characteristics and resources that make Brachypodium an attractive model system for the grasses. These include biological attributes (rapid lifecycle, small size, small genome, self fertility, etc.) and genomic resources developed by the research community (whole genome sequence, efficient transformation, etc.).