Though matched with an Indian Web designer who spoke English well, Buchanan said his contact at Sumpraxis "acted as offensive coordinator on the project to keep things on track" and gave him peace of mind "because I had someone I could call if things went horribly wrong."  Even with the added consulting fee, he said the cost of the site redesign was half that of the quotes he had received from local vendors.

In addition to computer programming and Web design, commonly outsourced jobs include patent research, product development, human resources, accounting, and various back-office administrative tasks.

"It's that 'world is flat' mentality where young entrepreneurs in particular think nothing of outsourcing anything and everything halfway around the world," said Lawrence Geburd, a small-business consultant who teaches entrepreneurship and venture initiation at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business.  "If you think about it, risks like delivery delays or theft of vital information are not any greater than if you used the guy around the block."

Locales known for their inexpensive, educated, and enthusiastic labor forces include Argentina, Brazil, Chile, China, Estonia, Hungary, India, Mexico, Russia, and Ukraine.

Rokon International, a Rochester, New Hampshire, manufacturer of off-road motorcycles, has 15 employees and hundreds of contractors worldwide. Company president Tom Blais said his bikes have more than 900 parts and most are made offshore-grips from Brazil, wheels from China, and brackets from Taiwan, for example.

"Finding the right suppliers for my business has been about cultivating relationships over time," said Blais, who gets his best leads by networking at trade shows rather than using websites or consultants. "You have to get out there and talk to people as well as do your homework at your desk, but in the end you have to learn to trust."

Some of his trust has been misplaced, as was the case with the Chinese company that made him seats out of Naugahyde so thin, Blais said, "it'd tear if you looked at it sideways." But by and large, he said, his trust has been rewarded with good products.

Indeed, he said, his biggest source of grief in outsourcing has been "when I've not been specific enough on what I wanted."