Costa Rica and Mauritius have experienced dramatic growth in exports over the past three decades. They have done this mainly by finding new export products to supplement traditional agricultural exports and by exporting services and more manufactured goods. Exports from Mauritius grew from $89 million in 1970 to $2.8 billion in 2000 a thirty-fold increase.

For Costa Rica, the growth over the same period was almost as impressive a twenty-five fold rise from $276 million to $7.4 billion. Most developing countries have sought to achieve such growth, though most have made only modest progress over the same period.

In this paper we explore why Costa Rica and Mauritius succeeded when others did not and what lessons can be drawn from that success.