Gravitational waves from double white dwarfs and AM CVn binaries

I give a brief overview of our model for the galactic population of compact binaries that is used to predict the low-frequency gravitational wave signal from the galaxy, and discuss recent observational developments that will enable us to test and improve this model. The SPY project will discover some 150 new close double white dwarfs and, recently, two ROSAT sources turned out to be new AM CVn candidates, one with an orbital period of only 5 min. I give an update on the expected binaries that will be resolved by LISA and discuss what we can learn about the galactic population of compact binaries once LISA gives her first results.