The Carnegie Corporation found its first great manager in Frederick Paul Keppel (1875-1943). Keppel's career is important to historians of education because interwar Carnegie initiatives, articulated through the Corporation's Dominions and Colonies Fund and Teachers College, Columbia University, internationalised American educational theories and practices throughout the English-speaking world. Keppel's concept of "key men", prominent authorities influencing events in their home countries, was central to these endeavours. Both products and advocates of modernism, key men put their confidence in the natural and social sciences, in turn melded into the grand themes of their times; the British Imperial Mission, American Expansionism, and shared Anglo-Saxon racial identity. The preparatory nature of Keppel's life and work experiences are first explored. The article then surveys how the complex, yet remarkably informal, network of overseas key men were established. An examination of the Carnegie legacy offers some conclusions. (Contains 3 tables, 2 figures and 92 footnotes.)