Poverty and social inequalities have powerfully sculpted not only the distribution of infectious and other diseases but also the course of disease in those affected. The lack of proper diagnosis and access to adequate health services only compounds the problem. In low-resource settings, the burden of disease can be reduced if the basic human and material resources exist to support the use of low-cost interventions by appropriately trained personnel. For 20 years, the Sustainable Sciences Institute has built scientific capacity in developing countries to recognize, prevent, and respond to the threats posed by disease.