Defects in melanocytes have been implicated in the etiology of a variety of human skin diseases and disorders (Lin and Fisher, 2007; Fistarol and Itin, 2010; Rees, 2011). There is long-standing interest in studying the development and dysfunction of human melanocytes, but there has not been a reliable and accessible system to study early events in human melanocyte differentiation. An in vitro system that reliably and efficiently produces normal human melanocytes from embryonic stage cells would allow us to better dissect the physiological and pathological development of melanocytes. Recent advances in stem cell biology have led to the establishment of human induced pluripotent stem cell (hiPSC) techniques that enable researchers to reprogram somatic cells to the pluripotent state (Takahashi et al., 2007). Differentiation of human and mouse pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) toward the melanocyte lineage has been reported (Yamane et al., 1999;