The gauge -invariant meson and baryon distribution amplitudes which control hard exclusive and direct reactions are the valence light-front wave functions integrated over transverse momentum at fixed x i = k i + / P + . The "ERBL" evolution of distribution amplitudes and the factorization theorems for hard exclusive processes can be derived most easily using light-front methods. Given the frame-independent light-front wave functions, one can compute a large range of hadronic observables including generalized parton distributions, Wigner distributions, etc. For example, the "handbag" contribution to the generalized parton distributions for deeply virtual Compton scattering, which can be computed from the overlap of light-front wave functions, automatically satisfies the known sum rules.