AbstractThis paper identifies best practices for the selection and delivery of historical cases for use in intelligence studies education. These pedagogical imperatives (and avoidable pitfalls) apply to different levels of instruction and are relevant both for public and classified instruction. Drawing upon relevant social science scholarship on the use of historical case studies, the authors propose methods to select appropriate cases tailoured to achieve desired learning outcomes, to promote active learning and to avoid common problems such as hindsight bias, oversimplified single-narrative interpretations and prepackaged ‘lessons learned’ devoid of historical context.