One of the lingering controversies in the field of cardiac regenerative medicine has been around the origin of c-kit+ cardiac stem cells in the heart and their contribution towards cardiac homeostasis. A recent study reports that a subpopulation of c-kit+ cardiac progenitors emerges from the cardiac neural crest (CNC) with the capacity to give rise to cardiomyocytes. Contribution of CNC derived c-kit+ cells to cardiac myocyte development is regulated by bone morphogenetic protein (BMP). However, ex vivo manipulation of CNCc-kit cells reveals efficient transformation to early cardiac progenitors.