Globalization, immersive research and learning environments, unlimited access to information and analytics, and fiscal realities continue to impact higher education--and higher education IT. Although IT organizations face immense pressure to meet significantly greater expectations at significantly less cost, with such pressure comes the opportunity to move IT beyond managing commodity resources to serving as a strategic and catalytic force for transforming higher education. To do so, however, demands an evolution from distributed to highly coordinated leadership as well as fostering the institutional conditions for enabling strategic "shared leadership." In this article, the authors challenge all those engaged with IT in higher education to think even more boldly about leadership. After a brief overview of how the authors' understanding of IT leadership and collaboration evolved, a case study documents a four-year effort at the University of Minnesota to develop highly coordinated IT leadership as well as the institutional conditions for enabling shared leadership. The authors conclude with a view toward the future that includes success indicators made possible through the foundation and practice of shared leadership. (Contains 1 table, 1 figure and 8 endnotes.)