Target of rapamycin (TOR) has a key role in regulating cell growth, in part through its effects on protein synthesis. Here the authors identify RNA polymerase III (Pol III) as a new TOR target in Drosophila melanogaster. A link between TOR signalling and Pol III was first established when the authors observed that the Pol III factor BRF induced the growth effects of TOR signalling in both endoreduplicating and mitotically dividing cells. Moreover, loss of BRF led to growth defects at both the cellular and the organismal level, and depletion specifically in the fat body reduced larval growth rates owing to decreased systemic insulin signalling. TOR promotes Pol III transcription by blocking the effects of the transcriptional repressor MAF1 and also partly through the transcription factor MYC. As Pol III promotes the synthesis of non-coding RNAs, this regulation of Pol III-mediated transcription represents another mechanism by which TOR controls protein synthesis.