North leads ♠ Q (top of sequence) against West's contract of 3NT. Plan the play.

Planning
There are seven certain tricks, four in hearts and three other aces. Two extra tricks will have to come from diamonds by taking finesses on the assumption that the opposing high cards (king and queen) will be split.

The danger suit is the spade suit: if you take ♠ A early and then lose a diamond to South, he will continue spades and you will  lose four spade  tricks (and a diamond). You must break communications between the opponents' hand by holding up your ♠ A until the third round.

The play
Win the third spade trick and  lead a low diamond  dummy's 10, which South wins with the king. If he switches to a club, go up with the ace in case North has ♣K as an entry to his winning spades. Continue with another diamond to dummy's jack (which wins). Play ♦A to drop North's ♦Q  ten tricks will be yours.

Postscript  
The right time to play your stopper  in the danger suit is when your opponent with the shorter holding is playing his last card of that suit.  Some players use the Rule of Seven to help them with the timing. Declarer adds together the number of cards he and dummy hold in the suit and takes this total from seven to obtain the number of times to hold up. In the case above (3+2) is taken from seven to give the answer 2 ... hold up twice and play the ace on the third round.   The rule always works when opponent has led from a 5-card suit, a quite common occurrence  against no trumps. However, don't hold up if there is an even more dangerous suit the opponents might switch to.

When setting up the diamonds declarer played for split honours.  This will succeed three time out of four (when North has the queen and South the king, when North has the king and South the queen, and when North has both honours) . It fails when South has both honours  ... hard luck.                                                                                               

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