Building a new school can be exciting and creative. The process enables parents, students, educators and the community to explore their dreams and priorities, and create a facility tailored to their unique needs. Unfortunately, the process also can leave education institutions and communities feeling like they've bought an "off-the-rack" facility that fits neither their budget nor their expectations. In this article, the authors discuss a collaborative design process that enable schools to build customized facilities that satisfy their educational and community needs. Collaborative design involves, as early as possible, all the stakeholders that can affect or be affected by the planning, design and construction of a new facility. These stakeholders can include school board members, parents, teachers, staff members, students, administrators, community groups, local businesses and others. Some institutions use committees of administrators, teachers, students, community leaders and others to assess long-range facility needs. Such groups help give a community confidence that an institution is making facility decisions in an open, logical way long before initiating or seeking funding for such projects.