This report presents a case study of the Automotive Manufacturing Technical Education Collaborative (AMTEC), which brings together auto manufacturers and community colleges across 12 states to identify and implement wide-ranging improvements in technical education for automotive manufacturing workers. A "Big Collaboration"--AMTEC involves 30 community colleges and 34 auto-related plants in 12 states--could be what America needs now to train and retrain workers for jobs in new and fast-growing industries, including positions in the health care and green energy sectors, among others. Creating one or 10 innovative training programs at a time will not provide the capacity to make a difference on a national scale. To start to build effective worker training programs--in clean energy, for instance--governors can use this auto manufacturing case study, build on it, and deploy transformative collaboration to prepare individuals for these important and growing industries. In addition to getting ideas for a very different kind of partnership, governors can find in the AMTEC case study the following important lessons about the future of technical workers and their education: (1) The United States must value and invest in technical education in manufacturing and other sectors, as other nations do; (2) Technical education must reflect the requirements of the knowledge economy--skills such as critical thinking and problem solving--because these attributes are important in today's manufacturing and other technical work settings; (3) Real-world curricula must be developed collaboratively with the relevant industries so that the skills being taught are precisely those that the industry needs; and (4) Technical education must be rigorous and continuously improved so that students are able to step into technical jobs and translate their learning to the workplace easily and quickly. This study offers governors guidance on how to approach technical education and use it as a basis for workforce development from the perspective of employers and workers, thereby ensuring prosperity. (Contains 19 endnotes.)