In fiscal year 1981, the National Council on the Arts, the NEA’s advisory body, approved a funding request from the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund to support a competition to select the design team for the National Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC.  This competition was ultimately won by Maya Lin, then an undergraduate student at Yale University, who had taken on the project as part of a school design studio.

The memorial's design was selected through a national design competition open to all U.S. citizens. Ultimately, 1,421 design entries were submitted and then judged anonymously by a jury of eight internationally recognized artists and designers. Construction of the 247-foot wall began on March 16, 1982, and was completed in October. Today, there are more than 58,000 names engraved on the wall; each was etched by a computer using a process called photo stencil grit blasting. The special granite came from quarries in Bangalore, India and was cut in Vermont.

Although the memorial was initially met with heavy criticism and reluctance by both the public and veterans, Lin’s winning design now is widely considered one of the best public memorials built in the last century. The design is modern and simple: a long slash of polished black granite set below ground level, where visitors descend to read the names of the dead in ever taller columns, and then slowly ascend as the list dwindles. Flags and letters are routinely left as markers, and visitors often rub the imprint of a cherished name onto a piece of paper. It is thought to be the most visited memorial in Washington, DC.