Anion Exchange Membrane fuel cells have been touted as a potentially very low cost energy conversion device for both transportation and stationary applications. On the positive side, the past couple of years has seen a meteoric rise in the achievable peak power density and longevity of these devices – in fact > 3 W/cm² peak power and > 1000 h life have been demonstrated. The biggest criticism of this recent work is that essentially all of these ultra-high performing cells have achieved such performance at very high reacting gas flow rates (typically 1 L/min in 5cm² cells) with ultra-high purity O₂ and H₂. It is likely that these operating conditions have been needed to overcome mass transport limitations in existing cell architectures – either anode flooding or low electrode porosity from ionomer swelling. Such high reactant stoichiometries and the use of high purity gases are not realistic operating conditions for deployed fuel cells. Therefore, this study will focus in two areas. The first is the development of strategies to allow AEMFCs to operate at much lower flow rates (at least 1/5^th of previous reactant stoichiometries) while achieving comparable performance. The second focus area will be the use of air at the cathode, both CO₂-containing (400 ppm) and CO₂-free. The end result of this work has been much better utilization of the reacting gases as well as a much better understanding of how to stabilize AEMFC operation for long runs in order to test the true durability of active materials in-situ.