Asynchronous Learning Networks (ALN) are often described as “any place, any time” environments for learning. In order for such environments to become feasible and popular on a large scale, they must be based on a public market architecture that is distributed, component-based, non-proprietary, and standardized. This paper describes one such framework, and discusses its possible implementation using a set of standards developed by the IMS Global Learning Consortium. In addition, we comment on the central role that XML plays in the implementation of such standards.