Nonviral gene transfer of nondividing cells is notoriously difficult because of inefficient entry of plasmid into the nucleus. In this issue ( p. 873), Subramanian et al. develop a new peptide scaffold that overcomes this limitation, yielding a 63-fold improvement in gene transfer to endothelial cells. Their scaffold combines a nonclassical nuclear localization sequence to improve DNA entry into the nucleus, along with sequences to improve DNA binding.