The discourse that an educated workforce is essential for a prosperous and sustainable economy in a knowledge-based society has invited heightened policy interest in higher education. In effect, many industrialized countries are approaching, or have already reached universal access, with the majority of their age cohorts enrolling in higher education. This drastic expansion of higher education has invited new challenges to the system, particularly in relation to quality assurance. The focus of this paper is to explore models of quality assurance in the age of higher education expansion. In particular, this paper will focus on the Assessment of Higher Education Learning Outcomes (AHELO) Feasibility Study carried out by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The study serves as a compelling model for improving the quality of higher education in two respects. Firstly, the AHELO Feasibility Study is a model showing how learning outcomes assessment can serve as an action scheme to engage faculty in generating a common understanding of competence frameworks. Secondly, it is a model showing that competence frameworks can be shared among diverse universities if they are sufficiently abstract, but also that abstract competence frameworks can be articulated into concrete learning outcomes that are attainable for students within a given timeframe, and assessable by faculty through the use of relevant assessment tools. The experience of participating in the AHELO Feasibility Study demonstrated that external learning outcomes assessments can help faculty in reaching substantive and tangible understanding of the competence framework, and in substantiating attainable and assessable learning outcomes from the abstract competences. Such shared understanding is indeed the foundation of competence-based quality assurance.