New insect pest control agents are needed to meet the demands to feed an expanding global population, to address the desire for more environmentally-friendly insecticide tools, and to fill the loss of control options in some crop-pest complexes due to development of insecticide resistance. The spinosyns are a highly effective class of naturally occurring, fermentation derived insecticides, possessing a very favorable environmental profile. Chemically, the spinosyns are composed of a large complex macrolide tetracycle coupled to two sugars. As a means to further exploit this novel class of natural product-based insecticides, molecular modeling studies coupled with bioactivity-directed chemical modifications were used to define a less complex, synthetically accessible replacement for the spinosyn tetracycle. These studies lead to the discovery of highly insecticidal analogs, possessing a simple tri-aryl ring system as a replacement for the complex macrolide tetracycle.