This paper suggests that educational resources and opportunities currently in operation in rural Australia are brought forward during times of crisis. The paper discusses five aspects of education in rural Australia that are a response to the perceived sense of crisis and that have improved the general and comparative quality of rural education, including: (1) the increased potential for curriculum innovation, seen in such approaches as alternative scheduling and use of local resources; (2) the level of cross system cooperation by which schools share staff and technology to produce positive response from parents and students; (3) the administrative demands of the New South Wales Reform Act in such areas as technology and foreign language, which have been met through shared resources and distance education; (4) the positive outcomes from community closeness, which promotes social capital and the informal curriculum; and (5) the increased potential for school business enterprises with uniquely rural industries such as cultivation, tree propagation, animal husbandry, mussel farming, and aquaculture. (KS)