The Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework is often claimed to be a success and an example to other countries. However, if other countries wish to learn from this example they should not only study the current framework; they should also examine the sequence of policy reforms, over a quarter of a century, through which it developed. The article traces the history of these reforms and shows how they incrementally created the conditions for a successful comprehensive qualifications framework. It argues that the main drivers for change have been internal to the education system, rather than external economic, social or ideological pressures, and the main barriers have been institutional and political rather than epistemological. There were specific reasons why it took such a long time to develop the Scottish framework, but in any country it takes many years to establish the conditions for a successful comprehensive framework.