Barley (Hordeum vulgare ssp. vulgare L.) is an important crop species and breeding efforts over the past century have resulted in agronomically advanced cultivars. These efforts have also resulted in reduced genetic diversity of elite barley germplasm, hampering the ability of breeders to improve cultivars in the future, especially with respect to new diseases and a changing climate. This chapter describes in detail the use of H. bulbosum to improve cultivated barley. The chapter offers an account of doubled haploid production, introgressions, linkage mapping and next-generation sequencing before looking ahead to future research trends in this area.