In this review, we discuss the ways in which our understanding of the controls of nitrogen use efficiency applied to crop improvement has been increased through the development of molecular physiology studies using transgenic plants or mutants with modified capacities for nitrogen uptake, assimilation and recycling. More recently, exploiting crop genetic variability through quantitative trait loci and candidate gene detection has opened new perspectives toward the identification of key structural or regulatory elements involved in the control of nitrogen metabolism for improving crop productivity. All together these studies strongly suggest that in the near future nitrogen use efficiency can be improved both by marker-assisted selection and genetic engineering, thus having the most promise for the practical application of increasing the capacity of a wide range of economically important species to take up and utilize nitrogen more efficiently.