Kram’s (1980) seminal research on mentoring relationships has been the impetus for the past 35 years of research on definitions, functions, roles, outcomes, barriers, developmental stages and phases, impact of race and gender, diversity, formality versus informality, and the effectiveness of structured programmes, to name just a few issues. Kram commented to me over lunch in 2000 that at the time she was conducting her original research she ‘never imagined that interest in mentoring would take off in such a big way’. If Kram was surprised after 20 years, imagine the astonishment of Homer – who created the character of Mentor in his ancient Greek poem The Odyssey, believed to have been composed near the end of the eighth century BC – if he were to discover that Hargreaves and Fullan in 2000 wrote an article titled ‘Mentoring in the new millennium’. The concept of mentoring has indeed stood the test of time.