In accordance with one embodiment of the present invention, there is provided a technique for migrating data using a self-describing format. According to an embodiment of the technique, a first source data set, which is in a source-specific format and which conforms to a source schema, is read from a source database. Based on the structure of the first source data set, a second source data set, which conforms to the source schema but which is in a self-describing format, is generated. The second source data set is automatically converted to a first target data set, which is in the self-describing format but which conforms to a target schema. Based on the structure of the first target data set, a second target data set, which conforms to the target schema but which is in a target-specific format, is generated. The second target data set is written to a target database.