Research on Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander Serving Institutions (AANAPISIs) has primarily focused on student-level experiences and outcomes. The current study shifts the gaze from the impact of programs on students to the execution of those programs by focusing on practitioners--program directors (PDs)--that manage the day-to-day operations of the AANAPISI grant-funded programs. We conducted interviews with five PDs to understand their role as an AANAPISI program director, the unanticipated barriers to executing an AANAPISI-funded program, and the dispositions and competencies needed to achieve the grant's vision. We find that they are, what we call, institutional pathfinders because they are paving uncharted territory as higher education professionals. By looking at the role of PDs, we make three key contributions to the MSI scholarship by: (a) elevating PDs as key agents in conceptualizing and executing their institutions' vision as MSIs; (b) illustrating the strategies PDs employ to serve their students while navigating resource-constrained environments; and (c) focusing on AANAPISIs, the MSI with the least amount of empirical knowledge.