Owing to the excellent physical and mechanical properties, a variety of advanced ceramics and other stiff, hard and brittle materials are being used ever more widely in modern industry. These materials belong to the so-called difficult-to-machine materials and much attention is being paid to developing technology to machine them. In this paper, the important characteristics and application of the principle of machining these materials with a combined electrolysis and electrodischarge grinding method, the associated combined machining system, and the experimental results obtained are described.