Universities are increasingly characterized as businesses, and higher education as an industry. Yet there has been little empirical work to support claims of growing corporatization--and no theoretical basis offered to test them. To motivate research and discussion from a cross-disciplinary perspective, I examine three analogies for the university--business, state agent, and quasi-state--by evaluating the history of higher education in light of the theory of the firm and the theory of the state. I draw conclusions about the viability of each construction of the university, including leadership implications of the strongest theoretical possibility, and suggest further multidisciplinary research. (Contains 4 figures and 17 notes.)