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This chapter explores the issues of knowledge and curriculum in the theory and practice of recognition of prior learning (RPL), beginning with a review of the ways in which these issues are handled within the RPL literature. The key argument is that 'the experiential learning discourses that are so dominant in RPL embody a stance that is anti-formal knowledge and that this leads to silences, paradoxes and contradictions around knowledge and curriculum in theory and practice'. The chapter then presents and evaluates aspects of Bernstein's curriculum theory, in terms of their usefulness for enhancing understandings of knowledge in and around RPL. The chapter concludes that while there are provisos in using Bernstein's concepts, they do provide a powerful language for theorising knowledge and curricula in RPL, making RPL practices more 'epistemologically accountable'. Finally, the metaphor 'knowing the borders and crossing the lines' is used to argue for a more theoretical approach to RPL that involves understanding knowledge and curricula theoretically at three interrelated levels: within mainstream curricula; in terms of the nature of the knowledge that candidates bring to RPL; and within RPL curricula.