  We study renormalization-group flow patterns in theories arising on D1-branes
in various supersymmetry-breaking backgrounds. We argue that the theory of N
D1-branes transverse to an orbifold space can be fine-tuned to flow to the
corresponding orbifold conformal field theory in the infrared, for particular
values of the couplings and theta angles which we determine using the discrete
symmetries of the model. By calculating various nonplanar contributions to the
scalar potential in the worldvolume theory, we show that fine-tuning is in fact
required at finite N, as would be generically expected. We further comment on
the presence of singular conformal field theories (such as those whose target
space includes a ``throat'' described by an exactly solvable CFT) in the
non-supersymmetric context. Throughout the analysis two applications are
considered: to gauge theory/gravity duality and to linear sigma model
techniques for studying worldsheet string theory.
