Here-and-there models and equilibrium models were investigated as a semantical framework for answer set programming by Pearce, Cabalar, Lifschitz, Ferraris and others. The semantics of equilibrium logic is indirect in that the notion of satisfiability is defined in terms of satisfiability in the logic of here-and-there. We here give a direct semantics of equilibrium logic, stated in terms of a modal language into which the language of equilibrium logic can be embedded.