While students from many non-Western contexts continue to stream to Europe and North America to pursue theological doctoral degrees, new theological doctoral programs are springing up around the world. Many of these new programs appear to be adopting (more or less uncritically) one or another of the Western models of doctoral program design. However, this approach to doctoral program design raises serious questions pertaining to contextual appropriateness. The grounded theory study reported in this paper explored contextual concerns with respect to one non-Western context: Africa. In particular, the study addressed the question: How do key African stakeholders describe appropriate doctoral preparation for Africans in an African theological seminary? Data were collected through semistructured interviews with 33 stakeholder participants. The profile to emerge from the data was one of a program that was (a) contextually useful, (b) demonstrably achievable, and (c) internationally credible. (Contains 1 table, 1 figure and 3 footnotes.)