Since its introduction in 1996, Contrastive Interlanguage Analysis (CIA) has become a highly popular method in Learner Corpus Research. Its comparative design has made it possible to uncover a wide range of features distinctive of learner language and assess their degree of generalizability across learner populations. At the same time, however, the method has drawn criticism on several fronts. The purpose of this article is threefold: to provide a brief overview of CIA research, to discuss the main criticisms the method has faced in recent years and to present a revised model, CIA², which makes the central role played by variation in interlanguage studies more explicit and is generally more in line with the current state of foreign language theory and practice.