Abstract: The 10-meter South Pole Telescope (SPT) is currently operating at the National Science Foundation South Pole research station. The first-generation receiver on the SPT is a 960-element array of bolometers operating near the background limit to their sensitivity. The first key project, currently underway, is a survey of <1000 square degrees for galaxy clusters using the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich Effect (SZE), which will have sufficient statistical weight to place significant constraints on the equation of state of the dark energy. But the science yield of this survey will not be limited to the cluster catalog: This SPT dataset will provide precise measurements of the small-scale angular power spectra of primary cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies, the thermal Sunyaev-Zel'dovich Effect (SZE), and the kinetic SZE / Ostriker-Vishniac effect; measurements of lensing of the CMB by clusters and large-scale structure; and catalogs of high-redshift starburst galaxies and active galactic nuclei with depth and sky coverage unprecedented at millimeter wavelengths.