Virtually every academic department in an institute of higher education requires Web presence as a critical component of its information technology strategy. The problem of how to leverage the World Wide Web and build effective and useful departmental Web sites seems to have long been solved. Yet browsing academic Web sites from around the world reveals a range from a mere collection of static HTML pages to more sophisticated enterprise-strength portals. If one pauses to think about current practices and the issues an academic department faces, and then measures these against an "ideal" set of features a next-generation academic site should have, one will find an open-ended, complex problem rather than a "solved" one. In this article, the authors provide a roadmap, based on their experiences, for developing a cost-effective and successful academic Web site. They believe that their experience and strategy can help an academic department build an innovative Web presence and provide critical IT support for its research and educational missions. (Contains 5 endnotes.)