The plan of the paper is as follows. Section 2 develops the nature of the paradox by examining the career paths of different types of development professionals, and it argues that these paths typically entail a progressive disconnect from the ground level realities of the lives of the poor in developing countries. Section 3 discusses the EDP methodology and illustrates with the specific case of the Cornell-SEWA-WIEGO EDPs. Section 4 then takes a broader perspective on the use of Immersions in a range of development agencies, and how best to design these activities. Section 5 concludes.