Using novel adult skills surveys, this article analyses cross‐country patterns in skill achievement and labour market returns, comparing the outcomes for a subset of developing countries with the results previously found for high‐income economies. Apart from displaying lower average cognitive skills, developing countries also exhibit wider disparities in levels of skills by subgroups of educational attainment, gender, and parental education. Meanwhile, baseline estimates of returns to skills reveal that a one‐standard deviation increase in literacy skills is associated with an earnings increase of 14.6% in developing countries, which is statistically indistinguishable from the average returns of 17.7 estimated for developed countries. Nonetheless, there is considerable heterogeneity in the returns across developing countries, with the lowest estimates found in Armenia and Ukraine at 2% (not statistically significant) and 6%, respectively, and the highest reported in Kenya at above 30%. Differences in the type of employment opportunities and the degree of employment selection in these labour markets are important determinants of the observed gap in returns. International comparisons of returns should take this into consideration.