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The author encountered the Arab world?s full complexity while heading the largest American independent school abroad, International College, Beirut, Lebanon. The College serves 3500 Arab students, preschool through high school. Its nonsectarian program accommodates Muslim, Druze and Christian families. The author worked to strengthen the school?s American attributes in an atmosphere beclouded by Israeli air attacks, Hezbollah?s resistance, Syria?s occupation, and allegations of CIA involvement. Indigenous ways of management that had become entrenched during wartime as well as board governance from afar added complications. Despite everything, the school is a model that deserves replication elsewhere in the Middle East, especially after September 11.