Human beings are able to manually manipulate their environment with unique skill. One region of the brain that has been extensively studied in macaque monkeys for its relationship to manual abilities is posterior parietal cortex (PPC). Less is known about the structure and function of human PPC. Three experiments were conducted using neuroimaging techniques on humans to examine the (i) functional organization of PPC, (ii) areas of PPC involved in the direction of attention and (iii) stages of processing during visually guided behavior. In the first experiment, data was collected using fMRI during saccades, visually-guided reaching, and grasping movements. Some areas of PPC were responsive during a single task (“effector-specific”); however, many regions were active across more than one task (“multi-effector”). In the second experiment, fMRI data was collected while subjects performed a non-spatial attention task to either a visual or tactile stimulus; a region of right PPC was active during both tasks. In the third experiment, MEG recordings were obtained to examine the temporal profile of activity in PPC and other cortical areas during eye or arm movements. Different regions of posterior parietal and pre-frontal cortex were active at different points in time depending on the type of movement to be made. Collectively, these results provide evidence for three functional characteristics of human posterior parietal cortex: that it contains cortical areas specialized for the use of one or more effectors, that it contains an area in the right hemisphere involved in supramodal attention, and that it acts as a major relay between sensory cortices and the frontal lobe.