Cesium has for a long time resisted all attempts to produce a Bose-Einstein condensate. The conventional approach to BEC, relying on magnetic trapping techniques, works very efficiently for all the other alkali atoms, but it cannot be applied to cesium because of anomalous loss processes. With new optical trapping methods based on powerful CO₂-lasers we could overcome these problems and create a BEC at temperatures as low as a few 10nK. The unusual properties of cesium open up intriguing new possibilities for BEC applications, ranging from precision measurements to a molecular condensate.