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This invited white paper, submitted to the National Science Foundation inJanuary of 2020, discusses the current challenges faced by the United Statesastronomical instrumentation community in the era of extremely largetelescopes. Some details may have changed since submission, but the basictenets are still very much valid. The paper summarizes the technical, funding,and personnel challenges the US community faces, provides an informal census ofcurrent instrumentation groups in the US, and compares the state-of-affairs inthe US with that of the European community, which builds astronomicalinstruments from consortia of large hard-money funded instrument centers in acoordinated fashion. With the recent release of the Decadal Survey on Astronomyand Astrophysics 2020 (Astro2020), it is clear that strong community supportexists for this next generation of large telescopes in the US. Is the US ready?Is there sufficient talent, facilities, and resources in the community today tomeet the challenge of developing the complex suite of instruments envisionedfor two US ELTs? These questions are addressed, along with thoughts on how theNational Science Foundation can help build a more viable and stableinstrumentation program in the US. These thoughts are intended to serve as astarting point for a broader discussion, with the end goal being a plan thatputs the US astronomical instrumentation community on solid footing and poisedto take on the challenges presented by the ambitious goals we have set in theera of ELTs.

Ground-Based Astronomical Instrumentation Development in the United States: A White Paper on the Challenges Faced by the US Community