As transnational education is becoming firmly embedded as a part of the distance education landscape, governments and universities are calling for meaningful research on transnational education. This study involved the development and validation of a model for effective transnational education programs. The study used student experience as a key indicator of program effectiveness and, following a holistic approach, took into consideration various dimensions of the transnational education context including student, instructor, curriculum and instruction design, interaction, evaluation and assessment, technology, and program management and organisational support. This selection of dimensions, together with their attributes, formed the proposed model for transnational education programs. The model was applied for validation against three transnational computing education programs currently offered by Australian universities in Hong Kong. Two methods of data collection - a survey, and group interviews with students - were used to validate the model; data was obtained from approximately three hundred subjects. The model was evaluated in terms of the perceived importance, to the students, of the various attributes of each program dimension on program effectiveness. The results of the validation indicated that the students in all the programs participating in the evaluation were in agreement as to the factors they consider most important to the effectiveness of transnational programs. The validation of the model led to its refinement; first, the least important attributes were removed from dimensions; second, a new dimension, pre-enrolment considerations, was introduced to the model; and finally, the attributes within each of the dimensions were ordered in terms of their perceived importance.