Infrastructure is a worldwide policy priority for national development via regional integration into the global economy. However, economic, ecological and social research draws contrasting conclusions about the consequences of infrastructure. We present a synthetic approach to the study of infrastructure, focusing on a multidimensional treatment of indicators of connectivity and resilience. As our study case, we adopt a tri-national frontier in the southwestern Amazon being integrated by a highway, and use survey data for rural leaders to evaluate the relationship of community connectivity to market towns and social-ecological resilience. The findings show varying relationships among different dimensions of connectivity and resilience, which bear implications regarding indicator approaches to the study of infrastructure impacts. © 2011 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.