Specialized knowledge, skills, and mindsets are necessary for effective security cooperation. However, efforts to develop the security cooperation workforce face significant challenges, including disagreement over what constitutes expertise and a manning system that often treats security cooperation as a temporary assignment rather than a career path. Building a professional, competent, and unified workforce requires understanding the qualities that define exceptional security cooperation practitioners and the barriers to professional development, competency-based education, and strategic retention. It also necessitates identifying how to shift from a culture of compliance and “box checking,” where success is measured by task completion, to a professional culture that emphasizes strategic outcomes, critical thinking, continuous improvement, specialized expertise, and collaboration.