Demystifying the Middle East is an important component of developing cultural competency—the ability to interact with, develop positive relationships with, and collaborate with people of diverse cultural backgrounds. We at Lindenwood University in St. Charles, Missouri have pioneered a new approach to infusing cultural competency training in our courses and demystifying the Middle East for our students through a unique partnership with the University of Mosul (UOM), Iraq. Using an adapted COIL framework (Collaborative Online International Learning), this partnership brings UOM students into Lindenwood classrooms virtually to work with Lindenwood students studying in various disciplines across its four colleges. Lindenwood professors design collaborative online projects in consultation with Middle East experts in our College of Arts and Humanities and faculty from UOM. In these collaborations, student volunteers from UOM apply to participate in selected Lindenwood course activities where students navigate cultural differences, time zones, and new technology to work together translating texts, designing bilingual advertisements, developing business plans, or discussing philosophy and ethics. Our partnership with the University of Mosul is structured to offer maximum flexibility for Lindenwood faculty designing Virtual Exchange collaborations and a variety of options for UOM students seeking experience in English language communication and cultural exchange. Drawing from this experience, the paper presented will explore the use of innovative partnership structures to maximize the benefits of Virtual Exchange for students and faculty at participating institutions.