In the 1940s and 50s, some development economists believed that natural resource abundance would help poor states to overcome their capital shortfalls by providing much needed foreign exchange, attract foreign investment, provide raw materials that could be used for industrial development and revenues for governments to provide basic public goods. Over four decades after not many persons in academic and policy circles consider resource abundance a blessing. Mineral resource abundance has been particularly identified to have the highest risk. This paper examines the rationale for this paradigm shift, and shows that evidence on the “resource curse” is not overwhelming, even among mineral-dependent states. If a country creates or is endowed with the right set of institutions, and adopts the right set of policies at the time of resource discovery or when it assumes a significant role in its political-economy, it is more likely to attain rapid economic growth and development and to do better than other countries with equal endowments but without such resource. The paper propose a case-by-case examination of economic and political institutional endowments and other factors, such as the structure of extractive industry, and the management of resource wealth, as a way of gaining greater insight of the role of natural resources in civil conflict and development, and how to assist resource-abundant post-conflict countries to get back to (or enter) the peaceful developmental path.