Most human cells lack telomerase, the enzyme that elongates telomeres. The resulting telomere erosion eventually limits cell proliferation and tissue renewal, thereby impacting age-dependent pathologies. In this issue of Genes & Development, a technical tour-de-force by Chow and colleagues (pp. 1167-1178) reveals a highly choreographed sequence of events that processes newly replicated chromosome ends into mature telomeres. This sheds new light on an underappreciated contribution to telomere dynamics that may be as important as telomerase in dictating the correlation between life span and telomere length.