This grant provides support for the construction, installation, and deployment of an infrared spectrograph for use by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) to study star formation in the Milky Way.  The instrument, to be installed on the du Pont Telescope in Las Campanas, Chile, is identical to one already constructed and installed on the Sloan Telescope at Apache Point Observatory in New Mexico, the SDSS’s primary observational instrument.  The new spectrograph, installed in the southern hemisphere, will allow SDSS researchers, working in collaboration with their Chilean colleagues, to make parallel observations both north and south of the equator, quadrupling the number of observable stars and exposing sections of the inner Milky Way unviewable from the north.  The project also promises to be a productive collaboration between American and Chilean astronomers, with nearly 20 Chilean scientists and engineers from multiple institutions directly involved in the installation and operation of the instrument.