Access to synthetic carbohydrates is an urgent need for the development of carbohydrate-based drugs, vaccines, adjuvants as well as novel drug delivery systems. Besides traditional synthesis in solution, synthetic carbohydrates have been generated by chemoenzymatic methods as well as automated solid-phase synthesis. Synthetic oligosaccharides have proven to be useful for identifying ligands of carbohydrate-binding proteins such as C-type lectins and siglecs using glycan arrays. Furthermore, glyconanoparticles and glycodendrimers have been used for specific targeting of lectins of the immune system such as selectins, DC-SIGN, and CD22. This review focuses on how diverse carbohydrate structures can be synthetically derived and highlights the benefit of synthetic carbohydrates for glycobiology.