In spite of the importance often attached to the role played by leadership in university-based cooperative research centres, we know very little about what "leadership" means in this specific context. The research reported here used a qualitative approach to identify fifteen dimensions of leadership performance for directors of university-based cooperative research centres, which might serve as the basis of a future quantitative leadership performance measure. Nineteen university faculty members working in research centres were interviewed, and their responses were content-analysed to identify both facilitators and inhibitors of centre directors' performance. Facilitative performance dimensions included: technical expertise, ambition/work ethic, broad thinking, embracing ambiguity, balancing competing stakeholders, leveraging social capital, obtaining resources, navigating bureaucracy, granting autonomy, interpersonal skill, team building and task adaptability. Inhibiting performance dimensions included: abrasiveness, disorganization and conflict avoidance. The results are discussed in terms of the commonalities and particularities they reveal about cooperative centre leadership relative to leadership performance in other settings. (Contains 2 tables.)