How life arose on the early Earth is a fundamental scientific problem. The first replicating systems appear likely to have depended on the chemical synthesis of aperiodic polymers able to encode both information and function. Prebiotic experiments and the organization of modern metabolism strongly suggest that ribonucleic acid (RNA) might have been this transitional polymer. If RNA was involved in an early ‘RNA World’ then RNA based replication must have been sustained by a vibrant RNA centered metabolism. Key to this metabolism would have been the synthesis of RNA monomers, that are the basic substrates required for RNA templated polymerization and replication. I will discuss work by my laboratory that demonstrates RNAs ability to manipulate small molecules and synthesis nucleotide building blocks. Most importantly we have made progress in the development of a RNA polymerase ribozyme that is able to partially copy a RNA template. Such a polymerase might ultimately serve as the foundation for a laboratory based replicating system that could be used to study the early evolution of life.