I bought a Beaglebone Black Wireless a few days ago, and this is my first time using them.  I wanted it specifically to use it as a wireless access point, however I was met with several hours of frustration in trying to figure out why ifconfig would list an ethernet port, but no wlan0.  

This saved the day: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!category-topic/beaglebone/PUPLXFkJsaI