With the advent of broadband integrated services data network (B-ISDN) technologies such as Asyn- chronous Transfer Mode (ATM) networks, packet-based multimedia (e.g., live audio and video, animation, and text) conferencing is becoming a viable means for achieving virtual proximity, which enables us to over- come the physical separation in space and time and to interact more effectively in our science and engineering endeavors. To bring about the reality of virtual prox- imity, many technical issues need to be addressed. One important issue is to develop an efficient multipoint au- dio and video control scheme. This paper discusses the related issues and outlines a solution.