The origin and early evolution of the solar system are studied through microbeam isotopic and chemical analyses of a variety of components in meteorites. Laboratory experiments are done to simulate high temperature chemical and isotopic fractionation processes that may have occurred in the solar nebula. The daughter isotopes from the decay of short-lived isotopes such as 26Al, 53Mn and 41Ca are being used to measure relative ages of components in primitive meteorites and to place constraints on the lifetime of the solar nebula. In a joint University of Chicago-Argonne National Laboratory project, microbeam laser resonance ionization mass spectrometry is being used to measure isotopic and chemical compositions of trace elements in individual presolar interstellar grains recovered from primitive meteorites. These grains condensed around individual stars before the solar system formed and the isotopic compositions of the grains provide a record of nucleosynthesis in those stars.