The international education community has long recognized the unique and important contribution that American-style institutions, such as the American University in Beirut, play in the quality of education offered around the world (Bertelsen, 2012). Not as well recognized, however, are institutions across the globe that adopt American or Western approaches without drawing excessive attention to their deliberate efforts. In the coming years, travel to the United States for higher education may decline significantly, giving American or American-inspired universities across the globe greater prominence. But the contrast between the decline in global leadership of U.S. foreign policy, yet the still strong (and possibly increasing) global leadership of American higher education, encourages us to explore what is really meant by "American university." The nonbranded but American-inspired institutions offer a unique understanding of what we mean by the American model of higher education when neither the geographical location nor the organizational label makes their American features clear.