This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Third International Software Product Line Conference, SPLC 2004, held in Boston, MA, USA in August/September 2004. The 18 revised full technical papers presented together with a keynote abstract and summaries of panels, tutorials, and workshops were carefully reviewed and selected for inclusion in the book. Organized in sections on business, architecture, and quality assurance, the papers address topics ranging from how to start a software product line in a company, to case studies of mature product lines and the technology used, to test strategies of product lines, to strategies and notations for creating product line architectures, and to the importance of binding times in creating product lines.