New Zealand's Education and Training Act (Education and Training Act 2020 establishment of institutions, https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/2020/0038/latest/LMS202213.html, 2020) confirms that the principal aim of universities is to develop intellectual independence. The act does not stipulate what intellectual independence is or how universities are to develop it. This article explores what intellectual independence might mean in the context of student learning in New Zealand, and what is known about how it could be developed and about how university teachers might confirm that they are developing it. The article provides a conceptual commentary and a model of intellectual independence, designed to encourage debate on this important and pressing higher-education policy issue. The model proposes that intellectual independence is the consequence of students learning the skills and dispositions to think critically, as an independent guide to their own beliefs and actions, and that the Education Act provides a challenge to higher education to contribute positively to the further development of an intellectually-independent critical citizenry.