For any positive integers r and n, let H(r, n) denote the family of graphs on n vertices with maximum degree r, and let H(r, n, n) denote the family of bipartite graphs H on 2n vertices with n vertices in each vertex class, and with maximum degree r. On one hand, we note that any H(r, n)-universal graph must have Ω(n2−2/r) edges. On the other hand, for any n ≥ n0(r), we explicitly construct H(r, n)-universal graphs G and Λ on n and 2n vertices, and with O(n 2−Ω ( 1 r log r) ) and O(n 2 − 1 r log 1/r n) edges, re-spectively, such that we can efficiently find a copy of any H ∈ H(r, n) in G deterministically. We also achieve sparse universal graphs using random constructions. Finally, we show that the bipartite random graph G = G(n, n, p), with 1 − p = cn 2r log 1/2r n is fault-tolerant; for a large enough constant c, even after deleting any α-fraction of the edges of G, the resulting graph is still H(r, a(α)n, a(α)n)-universal for some a: [0, 1) → (0, 1].