A conspectus is presented of 13 superfamilies of Mesozoic Homoptera known largely from isolated wings. To this is added recent data from whole specimens of Lower Cretaceous Homoptera from Brazil. These data suggest that Aleyrodoidea is the sister group of Fulgoroidea rather than a member of the Sternorrhyncha, that Cicadoidea rather than Cercopoidea is the sister group of Membracoidea, and that a variety of body forms characteristic of modern Cicadellidae was present in the most primitive lineages of its superfamily. Many predictions about the origins and ancestors of Homoptera, based on parsimony in cladistic analysis, are apparently false because of parallel developments and obscured ancestries of degenerate forms. A new subordinal classification is presented, consistent with cladistic data derived from fossil and recent morphology as well as DNA synapomorphy — Sternorrhyncha, and Clypeorrhyncha (=Cicadomorpha), Archaeorryncha (=Fulgoromorpha), Prosorrhyncha (Coleorrhyncha and Heteroptera).