Our paper discuss the „hot” topic of Business Excellence (BE) aiming to highlight and clarify the connections with Total Quality Management (TQM). Thus, we describe the quality movement from inspection to statistical quality control and the „Japanese Age” of quality followed then by Total Quality Control (TQC) and TQM developments that drived to the models of BE. After that, we present some perspectives of defining the excellence at national and international level and an overview of BE models with focus on the referential ones. Finally, we attempt to sketch the coordinates of the "journey" through TQM towards excellence in Romania.