Research initiatives targeting Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCUs) are beneficial to students, communities, and faculty, but they often struggle due to the young nature of the institutions and their research support offices. Moreover, larger federal institutions and 1862 land grant institutions are not aware of the history and operational constraints of TCUs. Nonetheless, the rewards of strengthening research initiatives outweigh the challenges and these opportunities should continue to be pursued (Mortensen et al., 2001). The goal of this paper is to present two case studies where strengthening initiatives have been implemented at Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute (SIPI) to improve research capacity.