"Human capital"--the value of a worker to his enterprise--has been around as a concept at least since the Industrial Revolution. The term "human capital management" (HCM) started to gain currency in the 1950s, but as a business phenomenon, HCM did not really take off until the 1990s. These days, HCM is on the human resources agenda of thousands of corporations, both large and small. HCM theory posits that a company's profitability is directly related to how well the organization manages its talent--acquiring, developing, and retaining high-performing employees, matching skills and competencies with workplace demands. Organizational objectives like profitability or outperforming the market are not exactly part of the mission statement of traditional higher education institutions, whose business, after all, is not to make money but to foster an environment that promotes scholarship and learning. Universities do not usually think about managing talent either--a person is hired into a position based on his curriculum vitae or previous experience, gets on the tenure or seniority track, and if s/he meets agreed-upon criteria, remains there until s/he retires or gets hired away by another institution. HCM has been slow to catch on at academic universities. But the economic downturn and the need to keep high-performing employees may be changing all that. This article discusses how university administrators are overhauling their approach to HCM.