This qualitative study examined the educational leadership program coordinator's role in selected research universities, through interviews of 10 coordinators. These individuals were responsible for quasi-administrative curriculum development and outreach duties. Coordinators were committed to leading their programs despite extensive time commitments and few incentives. Two issues created barriers to distributing leadership responsibilities: faculty autonomy and program faculty size. Lacking formal authority, coordinators sometimes found it difficult to enlist the assistance of faculty colleagues. Individuals in tenure-line positions viewed their responsibilities as challenging their continued scholarly productivity, whereas those non-tenure-track positions noted that their work performance was evaluated using different criteria. (Contains 1 note.)