Based on detected correlations between the strategic collaboration of U.S.-based diasporas and their respective ancestral homelands on the one hand and the socioeconomic and technological development of those homelands on the other, this paper, which provides a conceptual foundation of the correlation, attempts to ignite a new area of research on transnationalism and development in the global South. The conceptual foundation suggesting such an important correlation is ensconced in the theoretical contexts of world systems and racial formation theories. The hierarchically ranked status of a nation in some ways reflects the hierarchically ranked status of its diaspora in the United States. Strategic collaboration and brain circulation between the diaspora and the homeland can favorably affect the status of transnational communities, both within the United States and within the wider global system.