This article analyzes the content and format of the Overseas University Leadership Program organized by the National Academy of Education Administration in Beijing, China. Universities provide the country with scientific and technological expertise, pave the path to individual advancement, and are major economic engines. China's new mission is to transform a country with sufficient manpower resources into one with abundant talent resources (Zhou 2008). After the massive expansion that began in 1999, the rapid increase in enrollments and fast growth of universities transformed Chinese higher education from "elite education" to "mass education." As a result with the expansion, problems such as quality, funding, inadequate support facilities, unqualified academic staff, and graduate employment are gradually emerging. Since the 1990s, China has launched several projects, notably Project 211 and Project 985, to develop a tertiary education system of international stature with a select number of leading research universities and research centers of excellence. According to various World University Rankings (SJTU, Times, and others), most world-class universities are in North America and Western Europe; relatively fewer are in Japan, Australia, Hong Kong/China, New Zealand, and Singapore. Mainland China faces many challenges in building such world-class universities.