We give a new proof of a recent characterization by Diaz and Mayoral of compactness in the Lebesgue-Bochner spaces L X , where X is a Banach space and 1 ≤ p < ∞, and extend the result to vector-valued Banach function spaces EX , where E is a Banach function space with order continuous norm. Let X be a Banach space. The problem of describing the compact sets in the Lebesgue-Bochner spaces LpX , ...