Community-driven design is a current movement in the forefront of many designers' practices and on university campuses in design programs. The authors examine work from their respective public state universities' design programs as examples of best practices. In these case studies, the authors share experiences using community-based design processes, local or global, with their design students. Goals of these two case studies include understanding the varying context and the cultural implications provided by diverse academic and geographic landscapes. In one case, students traveled thousands of miles to experience a different culture; in the other, students traveled across the tracks and down the street for cultural diversity. The comparison of the two suggests that although the site conditions were divergent, the boundary-spanning methodologies provided similar outcomes among students, faculty, and community partners.