Today American higher education urgently needs bold thinking coupled with innovative actions if the United States is to meet the challenges of the 21st century--thinking and doing that goes beyond requests for more funding and accountability and beyond the tendency to look at what individual institutions do well and can contribute to global prosperity. There is a need for a provocative and thoughtful vision of how higher education's core values can reinvigorate the public trust that all universities must have in order to help the nation build sustainable global prosperity for the 21st century. And there is a need to be clear about the distinctive contributions that institutions of various types will make to that prosperity. Land-grant institutions became a model for the world in empowering ordinary people through an advanced education that was excellent enough for the proudest yet open to the poorest. The Morrill Act created an engine of prosperity for the common good of states and the nation. The celebration of the Morrill Act's sesquicentennial in 2012 presents an opportunity to revisit its historic "first principle"--the democratization of education and knowledge--and to extend it beyond state and national borders. This re-envisioning of the land-grant mission is what those at Michigan State University are calling the World Grant Ideal. This article presents examples illustrating the World Grant Ideal in action today. (Contains 2 online resources.)