The organized accumulation of lymphocytes is a biological phenomenon used to optimize both homeostatic immune surveillance, as well as chronic responses to pathogenic stimuli. During embryonic development, circulating hemopoietic cells gather at predestined sites throughout the body, where they are subsequently arranged in T and B cell-specific areas characteristic of secondary lymphoid organs. In contrast, the body seems to harbor a limited second set of selected sites that support formation of organized lymphoid aggregates. However, these are only revealed at times of local, chronic inflammation, when so-called tertiary lymphoid structures appear. Once thought of as two distinct phenomena, recent insights suggest that highly similar networks of paracrine interactions regulate the formation of both secondary and tertiary lymphoid structures. This review will focus on these cellular interactions between organizing and inducing cell populations leading to the formation of lymph nodes or organized inflammatory infiltrates.