Crop productivity is greatly affected by various biotic and abiotic stressors.  Herbivorous insects including chewing and sap-feeding insects are the most important biotic stressors reducing crop productivity.  In developing effective IMP (integrated pest management) systems, natural insect resistance genes are expected to play a key role and there is an urgent need to clone the resistance genes and utilize them effectively by introgressing them into the cultivated germplasms.  Until now many research works have been conducted on the natural resistance system(s) against brown planthopper (BPH) (Nilaparvata lugens Stål) identified in local varieties and wild relatives of rice.  It is expected that the recent rapid advances in molecular maker technology and the development of large insert libraries and transformation tools in addition to the ever-increasing genome information will undoubtedly enable researchers to clone the resistance genes for understanding the resistance mechanism against BPH.  We herein review the present status of BPH resistance studies and propose possible experimental approaches towards molecular cloning of BPH resistance genes as a model case for cloning natural insect resistance genes.