This chapter discusses how, in the 1970s and 1980s, Norges Bank began to develop instruments with a view to steering economic policy under freer market conditions. However, governments of changing political hues were unwilling to let go of the low interest rate. The oil price fall in 1986 brought an abrupt change in interest rate and credit policy. The government’s tightening actions included the introduction of a more binding fixed exchange rate policy. The frequent recourse to corrective devaluations was to be a thing of the past. Hence, there was a justification for using the interest rate as an ongoing instrument to stabilize the exchange rate. This task fell to Norges Bank. The transition to an independent, active interest rate policy on the part of the central bank was abrupt and came as a surprise. Barely a year before the collapse of the oil price, the Storting had passed a law that made Norges Bank one of the least autonomous central banks in all of western Europe. Ultimately, it was the external situation, and in no sense an increase in government’s and the public’s recognition of the bank and its institutional legitimacy, that restored greater operative autonomy to Norges Bank.