Recent Commonwealth Fund–supported studies published in the professional literature offer lessons and models from other nations for the U.S. health care system. The articles focus on: nurses' views of hospital care in five nations; improving coronary heart disease care in the U.S. and U.K.; approaches in the U.K., Denmark, and the Netherlands to providing after-hours care; efforts in Canada to control drug spending; and Germany's "carrot and stick" approach to improving population health and encouraging efficiency.