QCD Processes at the Amplitude Level

Some of the most difficult theoretical challenges of QCD occur at the interface of the perturbative and nonperturbative regimes. Exclusive and semi-exclusive processes, the diffractive dissociation of hadrons into jets, and hard diffractive processes such as vector meson leptoproduction provide new testing grounds for QCD and essential information on the structure of light-cone wavefunctions of hadrons, particularly the pion distribution amplitude. I review the basic features of the leading-twist QCD predictions and the problems and challenges of studying QCD at the amplitude level.