A diversity-oriented synthesis is described for functionalized chiral building blocks (i.e., 7, 9, 10, 16, and 17) and the biologically active iminosugar, fucosidase inhibitor (2S,3R,4R,5R)-2-(hydroxymethyl)-5-methylpyrrolidine-3,4-diol (22), starting from common chiral intermediate 1a which is obtained through a regioselective reductive cleavage of a bis(benzylidene) acetal