Abstract: Online information resources are searched. The system acts an assistant to the user during the search of online resources by pursuing search paths that the user did not recognize, or was unable to pursue due to time or skill limitations. After constructing a preliminary model of the user's information need the system identifies a number of unexplored leads and pursues them with a user-defined level of autonomy. Pursuing leads may involve the exploitation of any number of heuristics through automated advanced query construction and Web crawling methods. Documents discovered during the search are evaluated for likely utility and presented to the user. Both explicit feedback and inferences drawn from the user's interaction with online information are used to continually refine the model of the user's information need thereby redirecting the search system.