The concept of interpersonal trust has been linked to empowerment. Managerial-practices literature has asserted that trust strengthens relationships and enables empowerment, which may result in increments in individual performance and organizational productivity. High levels of mutual trust and empowering work environments ostensibly reinforce employees' feelings of personal responsibility for their work and outcomes. Although the assertion is frequently encountered in discussions of department leadership, it is less often the subject of rigorously designed, data-driven research. This study focuses on the intervening effects of empowerment on interpersonal trust relationships between faculty and department chairs in the community college context. The study is framed within related research and theoretical literatures on interpersonal trust and empowerment. It is designed to address the following questions: Is there a relationship between faculty members' perceived level of empowerment and their level of interpersonal trust in their department chairs? Do certain predictor variables moderate the relationship between perceived level of empowerment and level of interpersonal trust in the department chair--that is, gender, minority status, years in teaching profession, administrative responsibilities, involvement in committee work, involvement in team teaching, involvement in community/volunteer work, and union membership? Survey respondents in this study were full-time community college faculty employed at three colleges in the southeastern United States. Community college faculty members provided the study data to explore the relationship between perceived empowerment and interpersonal trust in their department chairs. Results indicated that faculty members who found their work important and personally meaningful, who reported significant autonomy in their work, and who perceived that they had influence over their work environment perceived higher levels of interpersonal trust in their department chairs. Implications for departmental leadership are presented. (Contains 4 tables.)