The NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), the National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA), and the Ohio State University (OSU) have collaborated to develop an improved spherical harmonic model of the Earth's gravitational potential to degree 360. The new model, Earth Gravitational Model 1996 (EGM96) incorporates improved surface gravity data, altimeter-derived anomalies from ERS-1 and from the GEOSAT Geodetic Mission (GM), extensive satellite tracking data - including new data from Satellite laser ranging (SLR), the Global Positioning System (GPS), NASA's Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System (TDRSS), the French DORIS system, and the US Navy TRANET Doppler tracking system - as well as direct altimeter ranges from TOPEX/POSEIDON (T/P), ERS-1, and GEOSAT. The final solution blends a low-degree combiantion model to degree 70, a block-diagonal solution from degree 71 to 359, and a quadrature solution at degree 360. The model was used to compute geoid undulations accurate to better than one meter (with the exception of areas void of dense and accurate surface gravity data) and relaize WGS84 as a true three-dimensional reference system. Additional results from the EGM96 solution include models of the dynamic ocean topography to degree 20 from T/P and ERS-1 together, and GEOSAT separately, and improved orbit determination for Earth-orbiting satellites.