The paper examines the economic situations in Greenland and Alaska. Similar in many ways, the 2 countries represent opposite policy poles from a cultural standpoint. The basic economic problem is one of severe regional imbalance when compared with the rest of the nation. For both, government policy has tried to raise income and consumption to a level comparable with the rest of the country. The varied improvement programs and policies use 3 underlying processes: population transfers, raising levels of regional productivity, and subsidization of investments, public consumption and levels of private consumption. Analyzed thusly, the subject cases represent 2 opposite approaches to economic and social development, although results have been similar. Greenland emphasized promoting regional economic development to serve social objectives; Alaska emphasized changing people through education and vocational training. Recent educational and development reforms, however, are switching their emphasis: in Alaska, the new policies are an adaptation of the Greenland policies for improving the lot of people where they are; in Greenland, the Alaskan policies for increasing the mobility and acculturation of people in economically depressed areas are being used. The failure of the educational programs in these areas results from the forms of the system, the classroom, and the academic year, all of which are not compatible with the traditional hunting and fishing semi-nomadic societies of these indigenous people. (KM)