Disordered materials, such as defective crystals, glasses, and nanocomposites are of great importance in materials science and technol., as key functional properties are directly linked to the lack of translational symmetry. Designing the phys. properties of materials to technol. demands requires detailed knowledge of their structural and dynamic properties.For the investigation of the solid state, NMR is an ideal complement to the various diffraction techniques, by its property of being element-selective, inherently quant. as well as selective to the local environment.These features become particularly important in the study of (statically or dynamically) disordered, amorphous, and compositionally complex systems, where diffraction techniques are often unable to convey a comprehensive picture of the material under study.By tailoring the spin Hamiltonian, selective averaging strategies with complementary informational contents are available.Recent structural elucidation strategies are based on the site-resolved measurement and quant. anal. of internuclear magnetic dipole-dipole interactions, which can be translated into distance information in a straightforward manner.This approach can give detailed insights into internuclear connectivities, spatial distributions, and intermol. interactions.NMR also allows the characterization of at. and mol. dynamics over up to ten decades in time. Recent dynamic elucidation strategies focus on the site resolved measurement of very slow local mobilities based on two- and three-dimensional correlation spectroscopies.In their combination, these complementary NMR techniques serve to provide unique insights into the relationship between local structure and macroscopic properties in a wide range of disordered materials. This principle will be illustrated with key results on inorganic crystalline and glassy electrolytes, and with paramagnetically doped laser-active glasses and ceramics.