Abstract.A new and more elementary proof is given for Lonsted's theorem that vector bundles over a finite complex can be represented by projective modules over a noetherian ring. The rings obtained are considerably smaller than those of Lensted. In certain cases, methods associated with Hubert's 17th problem can be used to give a purely algebraic description of the rings. In particular, one obtains a purely algebraic characterization of the homotopy groups of the classical Lie groups. Several examples are given of rings such that all projective modules of low rank are free. If m = 2 mod 4, there is a noetherian ring of dimension m with nontrivial projective modules of rank m such that all projective modules of rank # m are free.In [29], Lonsted proved a remarkable theorem which shows that vector bundles over a finite CW complex can be represented by finitely generated projective modules over a noetherian ring. This means that by purely topological constructions one can produce examples of noetherian rings whose projective modules have certain specified properties. This method has the advantage that one can impose conditions on the totality of projective modules while the more elementary method of [42] only allows us to construct a finite number of such modules at a time.Lonsted's construction makes use of rather deep properties of analytic functions. In attempting to analyze his proof, I discovered a more elementary proof of the theorem which I will present here. This proof gives rings which are considerably smaller than the ones used by Lonsted. They are, in fact, localizations of algebras of finite type over R. In certain cases, one can even give a very simple and purely algebraic description of the ring. This will be done in §10 using methods associated with Hubert's 17th problem.The starting point for this work was a question of A. Geramita. He pointed out that the rings in [42] have nontrivial projective modules of low rank and asked whether, for all n, there are noetherian rings having nontrivial projective modules but such that all such modules of rank less than n are free. Three