Academic developers are important interpreters of policy, yet little research has focussed on the interplay of policy and academic development practice. Using methods from critical discourse analysis, this article analyses a national learning and teaching policy, charts its development, and explores its interpretation by the academic development community. The findings suggest that while developers played a strategic role in the policy's development nationally, their influence on and use of policy institutionally was more limited. The article calls on developers to take a more overt leadership role in an area of higher education practice where they clearly have (often unharnessed) expertise.