This article's thesis is that a cross-cultural brokerage composed of Indians and non-Indians was essential for bringing the Navajo Community College (NCC) to fruition. To explain this brokerage, the study first examines the concept of cultural brokerage and then uses the concept as a lens through which to explore the roles of various constituencies in the establishment of the NCC. The article also explains the role of American academe with emphasis on the importance of one non-Native academic in the process, Robert A. Roessel Jr., and the role of his life partner and fellow cultural intermediary, his wife Ruth Roessel, in establishing the NCC. (Contains 95 notes.)