This dissertation concerns experimental work on the instability and transition of the rotating-disk boundary-layer flow. In the case of the natural flow (i.e. without forcing), measurements of mean-flow profiles, frequency spectra and phase-locked averages of the velocity time series allow us to distinguish different flow regimes as a function of nondimensional distance, R, from the disk axis. As R increases, the mean-velocity profiles initially follow the von Kármán solution. At higher R, departures arise and increase with R. These departures are due to the spatial growth of boundary-layer instability modes (cross-flow vortices), whose radial growth rates are found to match linear-theory predictions. The flow becomes transitional at R ≈ 530 and fully turbulent by R ≈ 600. The profiles in the fully turbulent region follow the log law of turbulent boundary layers and the velocity spectra exhibit Kolmogorov-type power laws. To study the response to forcing, an experimental apparatus has been designed which allows the excitation of stationary (in thelaboratory frame of reference) disturbances or disturbances which rotate with a frequency which can be varied independently of the disk rotation rate. The flow response to both types of forcing and two forcing-element geometries was studied. Stationary forcing produces a wake which decays with distance from the element, in agreement with theory. Forcing due to rotating elements can generate growing wavepacket-like disturbances, which although nonlinear, follow trajectories close to linear-theory predictions.