For students at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, the Middle East is a far and distant and potentially exotic or dangerous region. Many of them have engaged with the region tangentially, perhaps through a relative who was deployed there or through a classmate. For other students, the region is a blank slate, with only Disney’s Aladdin (1992 & 2019) as a reference point. An anthropology course called Exploring Cross Cultural Diversities offers a way for students to encounter the Middle East for the first time. For students at the American University in Cairo, the anthropology course Arab Society is a general education requirement for a liberal arts degree. Students often struggle to engage with the course, when they feel they are already experts in the topic–many of them being raised within an Arab society. Both of these course are often taken as an elective to fulfill a regional or global competency and focus on teaching cultural relativism as well as learning more about everyday life in the region. Often it is a struggle to engage students without any stakes. Virtual exchanges (VE) provide an opportunity for Gen Z to feel more confident in their global citizenship, facilitate interactions that benefit both classes, which raise the stakes for learning when faced with explaining and rethinking multiple cultures. This paper discusses a VE between the UNL anthropology course Exploring Cross Cultural Diversities – Middle East and North Africa, and the AUC course Arab Society and how VE can be useful in developing cross-cultural understanding and facilitating discussions which deepen connection to course and raises the stakes for learning. This paper uses the classroom exchange between UNL and AUC as a case study to discuss how virtual exchange builds skills in global citizenship, intercultural communication, and practice in cultural relativism through. I will discuss techniques for icebreakers and introductions, materials that are accessible to both students, and how we navigated contentious topics like settler colonialism, LGBTQIA issues, the West’s perception of the MENA region, and current events that have impact in both countries, and problem solving in the online discussions. The goal of this paper is to give MENA educators working techniques for virtual exchanges in cultural and history based classes.