Technical Abstract: Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) is an important food crop in much of the developing world and ranks third in production among food legumes. Chickpea production is limited worldwide by drought, insect damage from Helicoverpa armigera, Callosobruchus maculatus and C. chinensis and disease pressure from fusarium wilt and ascochyta blight. Efforts to overcome these production constraints through traditional breeding is difficult due to limited genetic variation. Genetic transformation offers the opportunity to overcome hybridization barriers and introduce novel genes for resistance. Although direct gene transfer via direct DNA transfer has been reported, Agrobacterium tumefaciens-mediated transformation is the preferred method and standard protocols have been established in many laboratories worldwide. Production of transgenic plantlets derived from co-cultivation of embryonic axes was soon adopted due to difficulties associated with regeneration of whole plants from callus. Stable integration of the cryIA(c) gene for resistance to H. armigera was the first report of chickpea transformation with a gene other than a reporter gene. Subsequently, the alpha amylase inhibitor gene has been successfully incorporated and expressed for resistance to Callosobruchus spp. In addition to introducing genes of agronomic importance, genetic transformation is a powerful tool for the study of gene function and genome organization. Chickpea improvement and application of genomics tools to the study of the chickpea genome will be enhanced through the use of genetic transformation.