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The Glass Lizards are a subfamily (Anguinae) of Anguid Lizards with an elongated limbless body plan that occur throughout the Northern Hemisphere primarily in North America, Europe, and Asia, but also have a presence in North Africa and Indonesia. We use twenty-five nuclear and mtDNA loci to generate a phylogeny to explore species relationships within the group as well as divergence dating. We also examine the group in the context of a coalescent species tree analysis and species delimitation. All major lineages were found to be monophyletic with potential cryptic diversity in some. The Anguinae are an old group first appearing in the Eocene and most lineages present by the beginning of the Miocene. The Anguinae likely did originate in Europe from an Anguidae ancestor that crossed the Thulean land Bridge, spreading to Asia after the drying of the Turgai Sea, then across Beringia as the climate permitted. Species delimitation did not support every accepted species grouping some closely related species together as units. A BAMM analysis found a steady rate of speciation.