This article extends understanding of the cultural experience of a firm in a host culture as a mechanism to reduce cultural distances. Integrating organizational learning theory with cultural friction perspective, this study proposes that cultural experience of a focal firm is a unique, firm-specific advantage. Time spent in a particular culture causes cultural friction that diminishes the cultural differences for the focal firm at the margin, which we term marginal cultural distance (MCD). Emphasizing the importance of learning from cross-border acquisitions for firms from emerging markets, we propose that compared to country-level cultural distance scores, MCD is a better predictor of the likelihood of cross-border deal completion. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.