Rural development projects, designed to reach large numbers of families in villages throughout the world, were a major element in World Bank strategy in the 1970s and 1980s. Evaluation of nearly 400 completed projects shows two out of three have been satisfactory. This paper reviews and extracts lessons from evaluation of both satisfactory and unsatisfactory projects. Based on these findings it postulates a three part model of successful rural development initiatives based on incentive, production and institutional components.