Because of the limited tropism of HIV, in vivo modeling of this virus has been almost exclusively limited to other lentiviruses such as SIV that reproduce many important characteristics of HIV infection. However, there are significant genetic and biological differences among lentiviruses and some HIV-specific interventions are not effective against other lentiviruses in non-human hosts. For these reasons much emphasis has recently been placed on developing alternative animal models that support HIV replication and recapitulate key aspects of HIV infection and pathogenesis in humans. Humanized mice, CD34+ hematopoietic progenitor cell transplanted immunodeficient mice and in particular mice also implanted with human thymic/liver tissue (BLT mice) that develop a functional human immune system, have been the focus of a great deal of attention as possible models to study virtually all aspects of HIV biology and pathogenesis.