This paper investigates the manner in which Barry Boehm and his work have had an influence upon the research at UNSW into software development cost modeling and estimation. During the period 1979 to the present, faculty and students have investigated cost models for the commercial software development environment, project elapsed time compression, software sizing, estimation accuracy, and analysis of project history databases. This investigation reveals the foresight contained within the Boehm publications and the significant contribution made by these over the last three decades.