The composite resin, due to its esthetic qualities, is considered the material of choice for restoration of anterior teeth. With respect to shade control, the direct-placement resin composites offer some distinct advantages over indirect restorative procedures. Visible-light-cured (VLC) composites allow dentists to match existing tooth shades or to create new shades and to evaluate them immediately at the time of restoration placement. Optimal intraoral color control can be achieved if optical changes occurring during application are minimized. An ideal VLC composite, then, would be one which is optically stable throughout the polymerization process. The shade guides of the resin composites are generally made of plastic, rather than the actual composite material, and do not accurately depict the true shade, translucency, or opacity of the resin composite after polymerization. So the numerous problems associated with these shade guides lead to varied and sometimes unpredictable results. The aim of this study was to assess the color changes of current resin composite restorative materials which occur as a result of the polymerization process and to compare the color differences between the shade guides provided with the products and the actual resin composites before- and after-polymerization. The results obtained from this investigation should provide the clinician with information which may aid in improved color match of esthetic restoration. Five light activated, resin-based materials (${AE}$litefil, Amelogen Universal, Spectrum TPH VeridonFil-Photo, and Z100) and shade guides were used in this study. Three specimens of each material and shade combination were made. Each material was condensed inside a 1.5mm thick metal mold with 10mm diameter and pressed between glass plates. Each material was measured immediately before polymerization, and polymerized with Curing Light XL 3000 (3M Dental products, USA) visible light-activation unit for 60 seconds at each side. The specimens were then polished sequentially on wet sandpaper. Shade guides were ground with polishing stones and rubber points (Shofu) to a thickness of approximately 1.5mm. Color characteristics were performed with a spectrophotometer (CM-3500d, Minolta Co., LTD). A computer-controlled spectrophotometer was used to determine CIELAB coordinates ($L^*$, $a^*$ and $b^*$) of each specimen and shade guide. The CIELAB measurements made it possible to evaluate the amount of the color difference values (${Delta}E{^*}ab$) of resin composites before the polymerization process and shade guides using the post-polishing color of the composite as a control, CIE standard D65 was used as the light source. The results were as follows. 1. Each of the resin composites evaluated showed significant color changes during light-curing process. All the resin composites evaluated except all the tested shades of 2100 showed unacceptable level of color changes (${Delta}E{^*}ab$ greater than 3.3) between pre-polymerization and post-polishing state. 2. Color differences between most of the resin composites tested and their corresponding shade guides were acceptable but those between C2 shade of ${AE}$litefil and IE shade of Amelogen Universal and their respective shade guides exceeded what is acceptable. 3. Comparison of the mean ${Delta}E{^*}ab$ values of materials revealed that Z100 showed the least overall color change between pre-polymerization and post-polishing state followed by ${AE}$litefil, VeridonFil-Photo, Spectrum TPH, and Amelogen Universal in the order of increasing change and Amelogen Universal. Spectrum TPH, 2100, VeridonFil-Photo and ${AE}$litefil for the color differences between actual resin and shade guide. 4. In the clinical environment, the shade guide is the better choice than the shade of the actual resin before polymerization when matching colors. But,..