The last few years have seen a flood of free-floating low-mass star and brown dwarf discoveries, largely due to recent near-infrared and deep optical all-sky surveys such as 2MASS, SDSS, and DENIS. Searches of low-luminosity dwarfs have resulted in the identification of two new spectral classes, L dwarfs and T dwarfs. I will discuss the general properties of these objects and what we've learned about their general properties - luminosities, effective temperatures, activity, binarity, and mass function. I will also discuss the evolution of brown dwarfs between these two classes, a transition which is dominated by a brief period of cloud-disrupting "weather", analogous to behavior seen in the giant planets of the solar system. Finally, I will point out future directions of research that can unravel some of the mysteries surrounding these low-temperature dwarfs.