Cross-cultural challenges are part of today’s life. An e-learning course never stands alone. To a learner from a different cultural background than the instructor’s, an elearning course also acts as a window on another culture. The material may contain many clues about the social assumptions of the society in which it was created. Along with the material, the student may be faced with additional practices such as how to subscribe, and how to be supervised and graded. All these elements of learning can be quite valuable for the learner, even though they are not in the terms of reference. What is more, they cannot be customized away. And I would put it even more strongly: They should not necessarily be customized away. People in general, and learners in particular, are very good at making their own translation from what an e-learning tool offers into what they need from it.