This chapter is intentionally practical and purpose-driven. The first section provides a brief history distance education for the purpose of providing new project leaders with a backdrop of existing perspectives and practices. The following section on development teams describes roles of team members and outlines typical processes development team leaders need to manage. The social negotiation section addresses the ‘soft skills’ side of leadership through a research-based model of stages of distance education development team formation. The chapter concludes with suggestions for sources of support for leadership activities.