The North Carolina Conference for Ghana's leaders was unprecedented in that it convened a broad cross-section of the Ghanaian polity to discuss difficult choices facing Ghana as it seeks to achieve Vision 2020. This conference was conceived in March 1997, at a workshop in Akosombo sponsored by the Private Enterprise Foundation (PEF) with support from USAID/Ghana. The conference at Akosombo initiated a public/private partnership for making the difficult choices required by Vision 2020. At Akosombo it was recognized that Vision 2020 goals could not be reached by business as Usual.  A set of pressing issues evolved out of that conference: controlling inflation, increasing the productivity of all resources, judicial system reforms, financial system reforms, and the "formalization" of the informal sector.  Conferees agreed that PEF, with Sigma One Corporation support, would organize a follow-up meeting in North Carolina for public and private sector leaders to forge a consensus on the strategy to be executed for reaching the next level of international competitiveness. This document communicates the essence of the consensus achieved by Ghana's leaders for reaching Vision 2020.