In the formation of any control problem there will be discrepancies between the actual plant and the mathematical model for controller design. Sliding mode control theory seeks to produce controllers to over some such mismatches. This text provides the reader with a grounding in sliding mode control and is appropriate for the graduate with a basic knowledge of classical control theory and some knowledge of state-space methods. From this basis, more advanced theoretical results are developed. Two industrial case studies, which present the results of sliding mode controller implementations, are used to illustrate the successful practical application theory.