In the Amigos en las AmŽricas project at Gary and Jerri-Ann Jacobs High Tech High in San Diego, California, students built connections with teens in Mexico, Central and South America as part of a semester-long cross-cultural youth friendship project. Weekly video chat sessions facilitated learning about their peersÕ lifestyles, beliefs, community, and culture, as well email exchanges with their partners. Their dialogues sparked from the questions: Who am I? Where am I from? Where am I going? Students created essential questions for their dialogues, exploring issues that they and their peers are grappling with. They also conducted research sparked by their dialogues, related to their partnerÕs country, with a focus on the political, artistic, and cultural factors that impact their partners and their communities.