  We note that the emerging features of lepton mixing can be reproduced if,
with inverted neutrino mass ordering, both the smallest neutrino mass and the
$\tau\tau$ element of the neutrino mass matrix vanish. Then, the atmospheric
neutrino mixing angle is less than maximal and the Dirac phase $\delta$ is
close to $\pi$. We derive the correlations among the mixing parameters and show
that there is a large cancellation in the effective mass responsible for
neutrinoless $\beta\beta$ decay. Three simple seesaw models leading to our
scenario are provided.
