  We present a new model of inflation in which the inflaton is the extra
component of a gauge field in a 5d theory compactified on a circle. The chief
merit of this model is that the potential comes only from non-local effects so
that its flatness is not spoiled by higher dimensional operators or quantum
gravity corrections. The model predicts a red spectrum (n ~ 0.96) and a
significant production of gravitational waves (r ~ 0.11). We also comment on
the relevance of this idea to quintessence.
