This article describes the Tribal Paradise Project the author and her colleagues designed for their high school students. This project was a bold attempt to bring together the real-world skills of collaboration and online writing into one major, cross-school project. Adapted from the famous "Flimibuff" assignment cited by Ray Saitz on his teacher website (http://www.rayser.ca), the author and her colleagues hoped students would think about the complex issues raised in "Lord of the Flies" by working together in online cross-school groups to create utopian societies that their fellow students might want to join. This project helped the author understand how cross-school interdisciplinary projects can help push students to strengthen both their collaboration and online communication skills. More importantly, the project helped the author see how such work might deepen teachers' understanding of how the teaching of these skills could be enhanced through projects that insist on such skills' interdependency and that promote the elusive critical-thinking skill of synthesis. The Tribal Paradise Project succeeded because of the support of fellow teacher-researchers in the Nebraska Writing Project, the forum technology and training funded by a grant from the National Writing Project, and the energetic, open-minded students who were willing to take a leap of faith and follow their teachers into the challenge of the unknown.