College and university presidents can position themselves to be a great resource for the country and the world. This chapter introduces the perspectives of two presidents of the University of Notre Dame, Father Theodore Hesburgh, C.S.C. who served for 35 years (1952-1987) and was a major presence in American higher education and a classic public intellectual, and his successor, Father Edward Malloy, C.S.C. who served for 18 years (1987-2005) and was heavily involved at the local, national, and international level. It offers valuable lessons about the evolving presidential role and how internal and external pressures have changed the expectations for the president as a public intellectual. In enacting the role of a public intellectual, university presidents must ask themselves how to exercise that duty in ways that are both expansive yet deep.