We show that, if one assumes fermion generations to be given by a gauge symmetry, together with a certain Higgs mechanism for breaking it, then the known empirical features of quark and lepton mixing can be largely explained, including, in particular, the fact that the mixing (CKM) matrix element (U_{mu3}), responsible for the muon anomaly in atmospheric neutrinos, is near maximal, and much larger than its quark counterparts (V_{cb}) and ( V_{ts}), while the corner elements for both quarks ((V_{ub}, V_{td})) and leptons ((U_{e3})) are all very small. The mechanism also automatically gives a hierarchical fermion-mass spectrum which is intimately related to the mixing pattern.
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