  We develop a theory of entanglement distillation that exploits a
convolutional coding structure. We provide a method for converting an arbitrary
classical binary or quaternary convolutional code into a convolutional
entanglement distillation protocol. The imported classical convolutional code
does not have to be dual-containing or self-orthogonal. The yield and
error-correcting properties of such a protocol depend respectively on the rate
and error-correcting properties of the imported classical convolutional code. A
convolutional entanglement distillation protocol has several other benefits.
Two parties sharing noisy ebits can distill noiseless ebits ``online'' as they
acquire more noisy ebits. Distillation yield is high and decoding complexity is
simple for a convolutional entanglement distillation protocol. Our theory of
convolutional entanglement distillation reduces the problem of finding a good
convolutional entanglement distillation protocol to the well-established
problem of finding a good classical convolutional code.
