Education development in South Africa emerged during the transition from apartheid to democracy, in a context especially marked by political and financial pressures. This case study of the University of Natal (now the University of KwaZulu-Natal) demonstrates how a strategy combining equity with excellence aimed to facilitate increased access to the institution, while maintaining existing standards. Central to this was the creation of a new academic subject, the "disadvantaged student" from an "underdeveloped" background, which provided a justification for an all-encompassing institutional transformation, involving an intensification of institutional governance, a rapidly changing student profile, and power struggles between lecturers and tutors. After having bolstered its scientific credentials, education development was internalized by the institution which it had helped to transform, and is now an integral part of its merged successor.