The international resource boom has spurred a hunt for new mineral and hydrocarbon reserves, and an important new frontier in this search is Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Australian resource companies are now spending tens of billions of dollars on exploration and development, and engineering and service companies are clinching billions of dollars of contracts, across SSA. In this Lowy Institute Paper, Roger Donnelly and Benjamin Ford describe how Africa now matters much more to corporate Australia, assess the drivers and dimensions of the SSA resource boom, and examine some of the implications for Australian companies and Australian public policy