This paper attempts to synthesize the diverse number of observations of electric fields and currents in the high-latitude ionosphere during substorms. By demonstrating that there are often spatial shifts among regions of high ionospheric conductivity, large electric fields and intense currents in the auroral electrojet, it is shown that substorm time variations of the current patterns over the entire polar region consist of two basic components. The first is related to the two-cell convection pattern and the second to the westward electrojet in the dark sector, which is in turn related to the three-dimensional wedge current system. These two components result from the relative strength of electric fields and conductivities in the intensification of the auroral electrojet and are identified as the signatures for directly driven and the unloading components in solar wind-magnetosphere interactions. We contend that disturbed intervals do not necessitate the presence of substorm expansion-phase activity and that the vast number of earlier complex results concerning the auroral electrojet can be ascertained from the high degree of variability of the two components, depending on substorm events, substorm phases, and their own spatial/temporal scale sizes. It is demonstrated that several major issues that have remained controversial are now accounted for reasonably well in terms of this two-component electrojet model. We also predict specific features of the substorm auroral electrojet that have not yet been observed. ¿ American Geophysical Union 1996