Attention has been recently directed toward synthesis of various types of heterocyclic derivatives, among them nucleoside analogs with potential antibacterial and antitumor properties.1Although a number of synthetic approaches have been developed, there are a few methods that appear to have the versatility for construction of a variety of heterocyclic systems. Among these are approaches that employ heterocyclic elaboration of glycosyl cyanides,2important-glycosyl intermediates that have been used in the synthesis of a number of naturally occurring-nucleoside antibiotics3as well as many analogs.2,4