Today's learners demand a new, agile model for education. They need options that are more accessible, flexible, and clearly aligned to careers. And to deliver on that, higher education has to break out of time-bound programs--15-credit hour semesters, two-year and four-year degrees--and concepts of learning that are strictly tied to traditional course-based instruction. Instead, higher education should be focused on what students actually know and can do, no matter where they learned it or how long it took. Competencies provide the learning currency of this future. They set clear expectations about knowledge, skills, abilities, and intellectual behaviors and center learning around their development and demonstration. This approach allows educators to unpack and rebuild courses and programs in ways that work better for learners, especially those who are already working, and the employers looking to hire them. Both competency-based education (CBE) and credit for prior learning (CPL) operate within that framework. And both are receiving heightened attention as a growing number of education providers think differently about how to serve today's students during the COVID-19 pandemic recovery and beyond. While CBE and CPL work well together, each is distinct. Understanding those distinctions and how the two approaches can be fitted together is critical to using them as part of a new agile model for learning. [This report was co-produced by the Competency-Based Education Network (C-BEN).]