The path to fusion in the United States requires partnership between public and private sector. While the private sector provides the vigor and funding to take some of the major steps necessary, there is a depth of expertise and capability in the publicly funded sector that is vital to resolving feasible approaches. An open national user facility such as DIII-D provides a crucial testbed in this regard, to develop and evaluate the required new technologies and approaches in relevant conditions. DIII-D offers unparalleled potential to meet this challenge thanks to its extreme flexibility, brisk upgrade cycle, and its world leading diagnostic set. This provides a basis to rapidly pioneer solutions, assess behaviors, constrain models and project to future reactors with confidence. The program has thus been redeveloped to meet these goals with a goal-oriented approach and new user model to enable public and private sector engagement. A new technology program and testbed approach has been launched to resolve the innovation required in plasma interacting technologies. Utilizing DIII-D’s unique flexibility, plasma techniques can be pioneered to yield projectable solutions from the plasma core to the edge. And with modest heating upgrades, the facility can confront the crucial integration challenge, the so-called ‘Integrated Tokamak Exhaust and Performance’ – ITEP gap, to address performance, power handling and technology in relevant conditions, simultaneously. Finally, workforce development program have been launched to open up access and opportunities to people from all backgrounds, part of a wider effort to diversify pathways into the field through inclusion, access, and equity. This exciting agenda is enabling scientists and technology researchers to pioneer the solutions now, in this decade, for a Fusion Pilot Plant and ITER. As a national user facility, DIII D has potential to provide the tools, teams, and insights necessary to move the U.S. rapidly to the commercialization of fusion energy.