The vitamin D(3) receptor regulates transcription in direct response to its cognate hormonal ligand, 1,25(OH)(2)D(3). Ligand binding leads to the recruitment of coactivators. Many of these factors, acting in large complexes, have emerged as chromatin remodelers partly through intrinsic histone modifying activities. In addition, other ligand-recruited complexes appear to act more directly on the transcriptional apparatus, suggesting that transcriptional regulation by VDR and other nuclear receptors may involve a process of both chromatin alterations and direct recruitment of key initiation components at regulated promoters.