Residual dipolar couplings (RDCs) have already revolutionized biomolecular NMR spectroscopy and are about to do the same in small molecule applications: impressive examples for conformational refinement of small sugars and peptides, the distinction of enantiomers and the determination of relative and absolute configuration have been published in recent years. After a short introduction into the basic theory, this article will give a review of existing alignment media, methods for scaling the alignment, pulse sequences for measuring RDCS and recent applications.