We have studied the Lyman and Werner band emissions produced by 20–500-eV electrons incident on molecular deuterium, D2. Emission cross sections of (3.7 ± 0.9) × 10−17 cm2 for the B → X and (3.54 ± 0.74) × 10−17 cm2 for the C → X system have been determined at 100-eV impact energy. Cascading did not play an important role in the emission, but it was shown to affect the emission seriously, particularly for impact energies below 50 eV. We estimate the cross section for direct excitation of the state and the cascade cross section to be 2.95 × 10−17 and 0.75 × 10−17 cm2, at 100 eV respectively. The cascade cross section is 20 ± 10% of the total B → X emission cross section, and is essentially constant in the energy range 300–50 eV, but increases significantly for lower impact energies, e.g., to 40 ± 15% at 27.5 eV. The cross section for the atomic 2p → 1s Lyman α emission from D2 has also been measured and the value of 1.00 × 10−17 cm2 at 100 eV is 20% smaller than the cross section for Lyman α emission from H2.