In recent years, the world of engineering education has been changing rapidly. Emerging communication technologies offer new means of distance education, the job market is getting narrower and increasingly competitive, and numerous stakeholders are concerned about the quality of education the students receive. To offer quality assurance to interested parties and the general public, engineering faculties in the US and Canada undergo accreditation processes, fostered by the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology and the Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board, which are professional boards. However, some university-level institutions in Europe have turned to the ISO 9000 family of international standards as a framework for quality assurance. This paper provides an outline of these three quality assurance schemes, followed by a comparison of their common elements. It is argued that engineering faculties can establish meaningful ISO 9000 quality systems on the basis of, and integrated with, the accreditation schemes. Finally, recent European initiatives for quality assurance in engineering education are addressed.