Establishing international collaborations between engineering education programs often entails a number of different activities, none of which are easy to establish or maintain. It is easy to lose sight of the goals. This paper suggests using student outcomes as a way of assessing and focusing these collaborations. The topic will be addressed using the experiences and data from a 5-year collaboration between the Universite d'Artois in France and Penn Sate University in the USA. Anecdotal data will be used from students who have engaged in collaborative design projects, in discussions of ethics, and who have had cross-national co-operative experiences. Key issues studied will be the positive role of cross-cultural differences, the preparatory role of such student experiences for working in the global economy, and the ability of information technology to internalize the in-house engineering curriculum. (Author)