Aligning curricula and assessment with the skills required by employers and, more recently, government standards is easier said than done. Through detailing a case study in failure to incorporate required graduate attributes into a postgraduate accounting programme, we explore the tensions among competing interests within Australian universities and their impact on teaching and learning. A content analysis of programme documents and results from a student survey demonstrate the ease of aligning formal programme and course outcomes with students' perceived learning while ignoring the graduate attributes required by the profession. While examples of best practice in curriculum development are common, analyses of failure are few. Understanding failure highlights common but taken-for-granted practices and assumptions that once recognised may lead to reflection and correction. Through our description of a simple means to review an accounting programme, we invite discussion among accounting educators about the opportunities for, and barriers to, programme improvement.