Data sharing across multiple lines of effort is an often-cited component of reducing costs, improving efficiency, supporting interoperability, and providing other potential benefits. However, achieving a state where data can be readily shared is far from trivial and, as a first step, requires standards to be universally accepted among the data users. To achieve real success, many other steps must follow. The Multinational Geospatial Co-production Program (MGCP) is an international cooperative effort where 32 nations together are coordinating the production and sharing of digital geospatial data that will eventually provide high-resolution vector data at a scale equivalent of 1:50,000 or 1:100,000 for much of the world’s landmass. The MGCP is a successful data sharing program that continues to provide benefits for all member nations. As an example, much of the 1:50,000 data that was used in Afghanistan was produced by 7 different MGCP nations. All of the multi-purpose Atlas data the United States used to provide humanitarian relief in Haiti following the 2010 earthquake was produced from MGCP data. While there are many other success stories, the enduring value of the MGCP extends beyond its ability to provide timely, accurate geospatial data. The MGCP is a role model exemplifying the potential benefits of standards that are fully supported throughout the enterprise. This paper describes key components of the MGCP effort, starting with the MGCP standard development processes and the importance of the supporting technologies that the MGCP has put in place to complete the standards. These include mechanisms for standards evolution, adjudication, compliance assessment, and enforcement. After developing these elements, the paper describes how they could be extended to provide similar benefits to other problem areas and thus form a domain-independent model for successful data sharing.