  We achieve degeneracy in a mixture of the two lowest hyperfine states of
$^6$Li by direct evaporation in a CO$_2$ laser trap, yielding the first
all-optically produced degenerate Fermi gas. More than $10^5$ atoms are
confined at temperatures below $4 \mu$K at full trap depth, where the Fermi
temperature for each state is $8 \mu$K. This degenerate two-component mixture
is ideal for exploring mechanisms of superconductivity ranging from Cooper
pairing to Bose condensation of strongly bound pairs.
