Human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) are stable in terms of their pluripotency, karyotype, global gene expression, ability to repair DNA and maintain telomerase levels, and growth characteristics. hESCs offer a renewable source of a wide range of cell types for use in research and cell-based therapies to treat disease. Characterization of cell populations that differentiate from them provides important information on early differentiation events and critical data for subsequent downstream manipulations. A strategy that has evolved in using cells is to develop a master bank of cells from which a working bank is generated, which is then used to generate appropriate cell types for screening, drug discovery, or therapeutic use. Appropriate cells are purified or enriched by one of several selection techniques, and such purified populations are used for most purposes. In this review, the authors discuss recent results and review the progress that has been made in the field, with a focus on using embryonic stem cells for neural targets.