Adaptive immune responses are essential for the control of acute infections and for the immunity achieved following prior exposure or vaccination. This process requires that extremely rare antigen-specific B and T cells encounter their cognate antigen, receive context-specific instructive signals from innate cells, establish cognate interactions with each other, and ultimately differentiate in a controlled manner before migrating onwards to their effector sites. While seemingly unlikely, this all occurs with remarkable efficiency largely thanks to a highly evolved guidance system which directs movement of cells in particular differentiation states to specialized niches. In this talk, I will focus on our efforts to understand how this guidance system works in vivo to regulate adaptive immune cell homeostasis and activation in the context of recall responses to influenza infection.