Recent progress in the development of long pulse, high performance discharges on the DIII-D tokamak is reviewed. This is highlighted by a discharge achieving simultaneously a βN H of 9, bootstrap current fraction of 0.5 and non-inductive current fraction of 0.75, sustained for 16 energy confinement times. The physics challenge has changed in the long pulse regime. Non-ideal MHD modes limit the stability, fast ion driven modes may play a role in fast ion transport, which limits the stored energy, and plasma edge behaviour can affect the global performance. New control tools are being developed to address these issues.
Modelling of `advanced tokamak' scenarioswith radiofrequency heating and current drive for Tore Supra