The use of Virtual Teams has become substantially more common place as the “global economy” has grown. Technology has enabled teams to collaborate across time and space, but can these teams perform as well or better than their co-located peers? The answer to this question is critical for companies considering offshoring or near shoring specific job functions. This question is also important for companies that require specialized resources that are unavailable in the local market place. The cost of relocating and centralizing specialized resources can be high and can be altogether avoided if virtual team performance is high. This paper addresses the performance question, discusses contingency factors impacting performance, and provides recommendations based both on the research and real world experience of the author / text