By most observers' reckoning, Poland during the 1990s was the poster child for a successful transition from a country with a one-party Communist authoritarian government and a centrally planned command economy to one with a relatively stable multiparty democracy with a thriving market economy. In the same time span that the United States measures a two-term presidency, Poland went from a period in which the main economic issue was no longer a shortage of goods but rather a proper distribution of access to the abundance of goods in the stores. The questions about whether a private market could take root and survive had been replaced by concerns that the growth of this private market may have outpaced the public sector's ability to provide the social services deemed to be necessary in a capitalistic society. Muted objections to a one-party state and the minimal likelihood of an alternative developed into open debates about whether there are too many parties. In the bigger picture, these concerns, as real as they are, provide an accurate barometer of the distance Polish economic, political, and social institutions have come since the 1980s. We document these changes in detail, analyze how they have contributed to the Polish success, and make some inferences about what elements contribute to successful and simultaneous economic and political transitions. This chapter places the Polish transition in the context of transitions in a set of Central and Eastern European countries, including the Czech Republic, Hungary, the Baltic states, Russia, and Ukraine.