The fine-tuning of the protecting groups and the glycosidation conditions were the key to the successful coupling of the carbohydrate units and vancomycin aglycon in the last steps of the total synthesis of vancomycin 1. The aglycon was converted into a suitably protected acceptor and the sugar donors were sequentially attached. Removal of all the protecting groups gave synthetic vancomycin that was indentical to the natural product (1H and 13C NMR, HPLC).