The American Indian Philosophical Association (AIPA) was created in May of 1998 by a group of American Indian philosophers; it grew out of the American Philosophical Association's (APA) Committee to Advance the Status of American Indians in Philosophy. It is associated with the APA but remains an autonomous organization dedicated to the advancement of American Indian philosophy and the participation of American Indians within the academic field of philosophy. The AIPA's overriding concern is to "engage in the praxis necessary to maintain an American indigenous voice of philosophy," and the working assumption is that a community problem must be solved as a community. These goals imply a number of different roles for such an organization, including the creation of a network of support to aid in job searches and publication and efforts to bring more American Indian students into the profession. Further, the AIPA is charged with fighting discriminatory practices and providing a positive forum for an American Indian voice that previously has found little place in academic institutions and associations. Cultural practices, oral traditions, the importance of community leaders and public policy--all these are upheld in the drafting documents of the AIPA as critical components for American Indian philosophy. This article directly addresses the structural environment in which American Indian philosophers (bona fide and hopefuls) must function in order to gain any recognition in the field of philosophy. It arose out of the authors' experience of being Native graduate students (the only ones in their program), facing all the normal trials of earning a doctorate along with the added challenges of cultural isolation and the constant need to justify Indigenous approaches and bodies of thought that have been consistently marginalized within their discipline. Coming from this context, the contrasting experience of the authors' first meeting with the AIPA in Albuquerque (in April 1999) had quite an impact on them, and this article is in part a response to discussions that took place there, along with ways they have been working at their university to claim more of a space for Native students. (Contains 3 notes.)