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In a “structured system” of equations, each equation depends on a specified subset of the variables. In this article, we explore properties common to “almost every” system with a fixed structure and how the properties can be read from the corresponding connection graph. A solution of a system is called robust if it persists despite small changes in . We establish methods for determining robustness that depends on the structure, as expressed in the properties of the corresponding directed graph of the structured system. The keys to understanding linear and nonlinear structured systems are subsets of variables that we call forward and backward bottlenecks. In particular, when robustness fails in a structured system, it is due to the existence of a unique “backward bottleneck” that we call a “minimax bottleneck.” We present a numerical method for locating the minimax bottleneck. We show how to remove it …