The present invention provides compositions comprising thermostable DNA polymerases derived from hyperthermophilic eubacteria. In particular, the present invention comprises thermostable DNA polymerases from the hyperthermophilic eubacterial species Thermoactinomyces vulgaris. The present invention also provides methods for utilizing naturally-occurring and non-naturally-occurring forms of T. vulgaris DNA polymerase in sequencing, reverse transcription, and amplification reactions.