This learning paper describes an alternative perspective that The Mennonite Economic Development Associates (MEDA) and the Enterprise and Career Development Institute (ECDI) in Pakistan have developed based on their work with poor women microentrepreneurs. The paper posits that that middlemen provide an essential service and have the potential to become active contributors to the development of more equitable value chains; MEDA and ECDI’s work has led them to see middlemen as often an essential component of a dynamic value chain who provide the critical link to markets and market information that can lift disadvantaged rural producers out of poverty.