Glia make up roughly half of all cells in the mammalian nervous system and play a major part in nervous system development, function, and disease. Although research in the past few decades has shed light on their morphological and functional diversity, there is still much to be known about key aspects of their development such as the generation of glial diversity and the factors governing proper morphogenesis. Glia of the nematode C. elegans possess many developmental and morphological similarities with their vertebrate counterparts and can potentially be used as a model to understand certain aspects of glial biology owing to advantages such as its genetic tractability and fully mapped cell lineage. In this review, we summarize recent progress in our understanding of genetic pathways that regulate glial development in C. elegans and discuss how some of these findings may be conserved. Glia are present in all animals with a centralized nervous system, and they perform diverse tasks that are important for proper nervous system function. Perhaps owing to the complexity of the nervous system, there is still much unknown about glial biology and development. We summarize the various molecular pathways regulating different aspects of glial development that have been characterized in the relatively simple nervous system of the nematode C. elegans.