Many recent authors have examined the new role that Writing-Across-the-Curriculum (WAC) programs are playing in the rethinking of academic culture and discourse at contemporary universities. In this essay, the author argues that the WAC movement is centered on an understanding of knowledge as being intertextual, interdisciplinary, dialogical, interactive, and constructivist. He sees the institutional and cultural conflict between large, modern lecture courses and small, postmodern WAC classes as representing the central challenge "and" opportunity for the field of composition in the 21st century. In order to show why and how writing can become one of the new intellectual centers of our universities and colleges, this paper examines some of the central cultural aspects of the WAC movement and ties these attributes to a possible re-invention of our large institutions of higher education.