In mammalian cells, the splicing machinery deposits the exon junction complex (EJC) on mRNA splice junctions. Two studies in this issue now link the EJC to different aspects of translational control. Ma et al. (2008) show that the EJC activates translation downstream of the mTOR signaling pathway, whereas Isken et al. (2008) establish that translation is repressed by partners of the EJC that are implicated in nonsense mediated decay (NMD).