This article talks about serious financial problems faced by the African Virtual University, the continent's largest online institution, forcing it to accelerate a major restructuring. The university was established in 1997 by the World Bank as a link between foreign and African institutions, and has been impeded by insufficient funds. As a result, the university will no longer act as a passage for degree programs offered by foreign universities and will instead focus on helping African universities develop their own distance-learning programs. The severity of the university's problems came to light when it failed to meet its payments to Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, which provided the course work for a degree program in computer science. As a result, the Australian university plans to shut down the program. Moreover, AVU has structured a new model and received help from the World Bank to develop the new strategy.