Based in the context of challenges faced by archives when managing digital projects, this article explores options of looking outside the existing expertise of archives staff to find collaborative partners. In teaming up with other departments and organizations, the potential scope of traditional archival digitization projects is expanded beyond the limits of a single institution. A case study of this principle is the collaboration between the Mark Twain Papers, the California Digital Library, and the University of California Press to develop TEI-encoded versions of elaborately annotated manuscript and published materials. Though not an example of a conventional archival digitization project, the Mark Twain Digital Project serves as a model of how to solicit and incorporate external experts into the design and execution of digitizing archival materials. (Contains 26 notes.)