This paper proposes that a virtuous circle for the sustainable develop- ment of a city or region is achieved through a process whereby proactive and strong leadership and effective institutions enhance the capacity and capability of a place to better use its resource endowments and gain an improved market fit in becoming competitive and being entrepreneurial.It is proposed that the performance of a city or region at a point in time and the path of its economic development over time may be represented by its position in a Regional Competitiveness Performance Cube.The paper proposes a new model framework whereby a city or region ’s economic deve- lopment and performance is an outcome dependent on how its resource endowments and market fit as quasi-independent variables are mediated by the interaction bet- ween leadership,institutions,and entrepreneurship as intervening variables.The ex- periences of a number of case study cities from a variety of settings in the US,Eu- rope,Asia and Australia are explored within that framework.