Louisiana researchers and universities have been involved in a concentrated, collaborative effort to advance state-wide cyberinfrastructure: computing systems, data storage systems, advanced instruments and data repositories, visualization environments, and people, all linked together by software and high performance networks. This effort led to a set of interlinked projects that started making a significant difference to the state and created an environment that encouraged increased collaboration. Part of this environment included participation in the US National TeraGrid infrastructure, and US National networks. This talk describes the overall effort, the new projects and environment, the results, and the lessons learned.