  We report the discovery of the optical and radio afterglow of GRB 010921, the
first gamma-ray burst afterglow to be found from a localization by the High
Energy Transient Explorer (HETE) satellite. We present optical spectroscopy of
the host galaxy which we find to be a dusty and apparently normal star-forming
galaxy at z = 0.451. The unusually steep optical spectral slope of the
afterglow can be explained by heavy extinction, A_V > 0.5 mag, along the line
of sight to the GRB. Dust with similar A_V for the the host galaxy as a whole
appears to be required by the measurement of a Balmer decrement in the spectrum
of the host galaxy. Thanks to the low redshift, continued observations of the
afterglow will enable the strongest constraints, to date, on the existence of a
possible underlying supernova.
