Colleges are fond of issuing proclamations filled with ambitious goals. So Clemson University was hardly charting new territory in 2001 when its Board of Trustees endorsed 27 goals to make it a top-20 public research university. Less than two years later, Clemson achieved one of those benchmarks by exceeding $100-million per year in research sponsored by outside sources. Then something strange happened. Instead of giddily setting another, bigger research target, the university considered slowing down. While $200-million in annual research was achievable, the board and James F. Barker, Clemson's president, decided on $150-million. Clemson's cautious approach is certainly rare, and maybe even provocative, given higher education's fever for unchecked growth. In this article, the author discusses how Clemson bucks the trend among big universities to expand in any direction in search of more revenue, instead staying true to its agricultural roots.