  The DIRBE on the COBE spacecraft was designed primarily to conduct systematic
search for an isotropic CIB in ten photometric bands from 1.25 to 240 microns.
The results of that search are presented here. Conservative limits on the CIB
are obtained from the minimum observed brightness in all-sky maps at each
wavelength, with the faintest limits in the DIRBE spectral range being at 3.5
microns (\nu I_\nu < 64 nW/m^2/sr, 95% CL) and at 240 microns (\nu I_\nu < 28
nW/m^2/sr, 95% CL). The bright foregrounds from interplanetary dust scattering
and emission, stars, and interstellar dust emission are the principal
impediments to the DIRBE measurements of the CIB. These foregrounds have been
modeled and removed from the sky maps. Assessment of the random and systematic
uncertainties in the residuals and tests for isotropy show that only the 140
and 240 microns data provide candidate detections of the CIB. The residuals and
their uncertainties provide CIB upper limits more restrictive than the dark sky
limits at wavelengths from 1.25 to 100 microns. No plausible solar system or
Galactic source of the observed 140 and 240 microns residuals can be
identified, leading to the conclusion that the CIB has been detected at levels
of \nu I_\nu = 25+-7 and 14+-3 nW/m^2/sr at 140 and 240 microns respectively.
The integrated energy from 140 to 240 microns, 10.3 nW/m^2/sr, is about twice
the integrated optical light from the galaxies in the Hubble Deep Field,
suggesting that star formation might have been heavily enshrouded by dust at
high redshift. The detections and upper limits reported here provide new
constraints on models of the history of energy-releasing processes and dust
production since the decoupling of the cosmic microwave background from matter.
