An easygoing Iowa farmer, Ray Kinsella (Kevin Costner), begins to hear a voice telling him 'If you build it he will come.' At first Ray doesn't know what to make of the voice, but when he laters hears it and envisions a baseball field and Shoeless Joe Jackson (Ray Liotta) playing ball in it, he knows what to do. His wife Annie (Amy Madigan) is skeptical but allows him to go along with his desire to tear out his crops and put up a ball field so Shoeless Joe can play ball again. After he builds his field he hears the voice several more times telling him to do other things such as 'Ease his pain.' Ray tries to understand what to do with these messages along the way meeting and author Terrence Mann (James Earl Jones) and an old time ball player Archie Graham (Burt Lancaster). In the end it is a story about one man's hopes and dreams being realized in a world where they aren't always realized.