Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA) is a middleware technology used to facilitate communication between distributed systems. It provides a platform-independent, standardized way for objects to interact with each other over a network. By abstracting the underlying network details, CORBA enables software components written in different programming languages to seamlessly communicate with each other. It is particularly useful for building large-scale, complex, and distributed systems. CORBA is a specialized skill that requires knowledge of distributed computing, software architecture, and programming languages such as Java and C++.