With many professors approaching retirement. a shortage of qualified academics has reached crisis proportions at a number of African universities. The shortfall is a consequence of decades of neglect of African higher education, as donors and governments concentrated limited resources on primary and secondary schools, and young scholars who manage to get advanced degrees flee the domestic poverty and decrepitude of academic life for business, government, and jobs overseas. Some African universities, along with a handful of foreign colleges and foundations, are now pooling their resources to develop new ways to turn out more Ph.D.'s in Africa. While they have met with some success, the process is long and intensive, and more participants are needed. Programs like the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals encourage benefactors to view universities as critical to Africa's economic and social development, particularly in such key areas as agriculture and engineering. Increasingly, educators are looking for ways to tap the continent's resources, through regional collaborations and partnerships bolstered by help from overseas.