One of the most amazing findings in molecular biology was the discovery that eukaryotic genes are discontinuous, interrupted by stretches of non-coding sequence. The subsequent realization that the intervening regions are removed from pre-mRNA transcripts via the activity of a common set of small nuclear RNAs (snRNAs), which assemble together with associated proteins into a spliceosome, was equally surprising. How do cells orchestrate the assembly of this molecular machine? And how does the spliceosome accurately recognize exons and introns to carry out the splicing reaction? Insights into these questions have been gained by studying the life cycle of spliceosomal snRNAs from their transcription, nuclear export and reimport, all the way through to their dynamic assembly into the spliceosome. This assembly process can also affect the regulation of alternative splicing and has implications for human disease.