As the global economy becomes more knowledge intensive and the wealth of nations more dependent on their knowledge assets being harnessed, it is essential for policy makers to have frameworks for the development and utilisation of national knowledge assets. This article argues that a policy framework can be developed through which policy initiatives in a range of policy areas can be filtered in order to meet the challenges of the knowledge economy. We have developed an approach that has previously been applied to managing intellectual capital in firms and adapted it to the public policy arena. In doing so we question policy orthodoxies such as the assumption that free trade automatically facilitates international knowledge flows, that participation in a global knowledge economy necessarily challenges national sovereignty, and that online delivery of education is necessarily a progressive strategy.