The relevance of magnetic impurity problems in cold atom systems depends crucially on the nature of exchange interaction between itinerant fermionic atoms and a localized impurity atom. In particular, Kondo physics occurs only if the exchange interaction is anti-ferromagnetic, and strong enough to yield high enough Kondo temperature ($T_K/T_F ge 0.1$). Focusing, as an example, on the experimentally accessible system of ultra-cold $^{173}$Yb atoms, it is shown that the sign and strength of an exchange interaction between an itinerant Yb($^{1}$S$_{0}$) atom and a trapped Yb($^{3}$P$_{0}$) atom can be optically controlled. Explicitly, as the light intensity increases (from zero), the exchange interaction changes from ferromagnetic to anti-ferromagnetic. When the light intensity is just below a singlet Feshbach resonance, the singlet scattering length $a_S$ is large and negative, and the Kondo temperature increases sharply.
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