The Spallation Neutron Source is the world’s most powerful pulsed neutron source. The driver for the neutron source is the ~1 km long, 1.4 MW SNS accelerator, which contains simultaneously the world’s first (and only) superconducting proton linear accelerator, and the world’s highest intensity proton storage ring. This talk will introduce the fundamental concepts of modern acceleration, and review how these techniques are implemented in the SNS accelerator. Additionally, a few of the prevailing beam physics challenges associated with acceleration and storage of very high intensity proton beams at the SNS will be discussed.