The Information technology (IT) leader within higher education can be viewed from three scenarios: (1) the IT leader as plumber; (2) the IT leader as gardener; and (3) the IT leader as alchemist. In the first scenario, the college or university network consists of pipes, and the role of the IT leader resembles that of a plumber, who keeps the pipes connected and flowing. In the second scenario, the role of the IT leader is like that of a gardener--planting seeds of ideas and waiting to see if any will germinate. In the third scenario, the IT leader can be seen as an alchemist--expected to combine elements from higher education to create a valuable commodity in the form of academic and enterprise applications. In this article, the author proposes three types of true "gold" that IT "alchemists" can create in higher education that will be valuable to students, faculty, stakeholders, and administrators: (1) twenty-first-century hybrid courses; (2) twenty-first-century learning spaces; and (3) twenty-first-century literacy. (Contains 21 notes.)