  In this paper we present and discuss our results for the conductance and
conductance fluctuations of narrow quantum wires with two types of disorder:
boundary roughness (hard wall confining potential) and islands of strongly
scattering impurities within the bulk of the wire. We use a tight--binding
Hamiltonian to describe the quantum wire, infinite perfect leads, a
two--terminal Landauer--type formula for the conductance, and the recursive
single-particle Green's function technique. We find that conductance
quantization is easily destroyed by strong scattering. We also find that
Anderson localization poses a serious restriction on the high carrier mobility
predicted in quantum wires. Conductance fluctuations in narrow quantum wires
are not, in general, universal (as in the metallic regime), but can be
independent of the wire length over a short range of lengths.
