  Deep Hubble Space Telescope (HST) observations with WFPC2 of the nearby
globular cluster NGC 6752 have allowed us to obtain accurate photometry for the
cluster white dwarfs (WD). A sample of local WDs of known trigonometric
parallax and mass close to that of the cluster WDs have also been observed with
WFPC2. Matching the cluster and the local WD sequences provides a direct
measure of the distance to the cluster: $(m-M)_\circ=13.05$, with an
uncertainty less than $\pm0.1$ mag which allows a substantial reduction in the
uncertainty in the age of the cluster. Indeed, coupling this value of the
cluster distance to the cluster metallicity, helium abundance and
$\alpha$-element enhancement [$\alpha$/Fe]=0.5 yields an age of 15.5 Gyr and
14.5 Gyr using evolutionary models that do not include or do include helium
diffusion, respectively. The uncertainty affecting these age determinations is
$\sim 10\%$. The majority of the cluster WDs appear to be of the DA variety,
while the color-magnitude location of two WDs is consistent with the DB type.
This suggests a cluster DB/DA ratio similar to that of WDs in the solar
neighborhood.
