This paper discusses the background of American Indian Studies as an academic discipline and offers a course syllabus that emphasizes cross cultural awareness and understanding of the forces and events that shaped the field of contemporary Indian affairs. The general education course for colleges and universities aims to generate mutual respect between cultures and mutual perception of the benefits of exchange of endogenous and exogenous information between cultures. The course emphasizes the importance of a good sense of history to prevent past errors from becoming future mistakes in pan-tribal affairs and ends with examples of collaborative problem solving and consensual decision making. The 11-week course schedule includes topics such as coercive cultural assimilation, tribal self-government and the Bureau of Indian affairs, tribal termination, tribal self-determination without termination, Indian activism and white backlash, recurrent threat of abrogation/termination legislation, elusive economic self-sufficiency, specific political powers of tribal sovereignty, and role of American Indian women in tribal affairs. Course objectives, organization, procedures, research paper requirements, and textbook selection are discussed. (LFL)