This paper reviews the state of knowledge and develops a conceptual model for researching frontier migration in the developing world with a focus on Latin America. Since only a small fraction of migrants move to forest frontiers, identifying people and place characteristics associated with this phenomenon could usefully inform policies aimed at forest conservation and rural development. Yet population scholars train their efforts on urban and international migration while land use/cover change researchers pay scant attention to these migration flows which directly antecede the most salient footprint of human occupation on the earth's surface: the conversion of forest to agricultural land.