Following the UN Millennium Summit in 2000, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) set global sector specific development targets to be achieved by the year 2015. In this article, the author explores the role of health and education research in producing technological innovations and global policy options and goals, such as the MDGs. Here, she presents three reasons why she chose health research as a point of comparison. First, unflattering comparisons of progress in the education sector relative to progress in the health sector are a constant source of irritation. Second, since the end of the 1990s, a series of debates on the relative value and feasibility of experimental methods more commonly found in health than in education research has occupied many education researchers in the United States and United Kingdom. Third, the opportunity arose to study the history of the development of one "magic-bullet" technology in health--oral rehydration therapy--both through recently published memoirs and through interviews with the principals involved. This article falls into two sections: (1) "Development, Deliverables, and Delivery Systems;" and (2) "ORT: Developing a Deliverable." Among other things, she discusses health research, education research, and development. (Contains 2 tables and 17 footnotes.)