Nature, our teacher! The natural alkaloids quinine (Q) and quinidine (QD) serve as efficient bifunctional organocatalysts in the asymmetric conjugate addition of 1,3-dicarbonyl compounds to maleimides (see scheme). Very high selectivity is observed in this one-step construction of highly functionalized compounds with two adjacent stereogenic centers from commercially available precursors. R1,R3=alkyl, aryl, O-alkyl; R2=alkyl, Bn; R4=Bn. Supporting information for this article is available on the WWW under http://www.wiley-vch.de/contents/jc_2002/2006/z600370_s.pdf or from the author. Please note: The publisher is not responsible for the content or functionality of any supporting information supplied by the authors. Any queries (other than missing content) should be directed to the corresponding author for the article.