The Academy for Educational Development (AED) has many opportunities to apply expertise and creativity to the solution of perplexing human problems. It is much more rare, however, to find oneself at the nexus of a set of opportunities that make it possible to make a greater contribution than the original objective. Macedonia's commitment to education, to taking a leadership role in the globalized world, and to being open to change provided that unusual context, and AED was privileged to be a partner in bringing it all together. This summary of AED's engagement in Macedonia since 2003 describes how all the elements mentioned above came into alignment, allowing Macedonia to become the first wireless broadband country, while providing a broad and deep platform to improve the quality of education. This paper is an attempt to share AED's experience as the prime implementer of several USAID-funded education projects in Macedonia. These are the Macedonia Connects project (2003-2007) and the Primary Education Project (2006-2011). (Contains 1 footnote.)