  We investigate spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking in SU(N) gauge theories
at large N using overlap fermions. The exact zero modes and the low-lying modes
of the Dirac operator provide the tools to gain insight into the interplay
between chiral symmetry breaking and topology. We find that topology indeed
drives chiral symmetry breaking at N=3 as well as at large N. By comparing the
results on various volumes and at different lattice spacings we are able to
show that our conclusions are not affected by finite volume effects and also
hold in the continuum limit. We then address the question whether the topology
can be usefully described in terms of instantons.
