In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, northern philanthropic foundations played a significant role in the development of higher education for African Americans in the South. The General Education Board (1902-60), a Rockefeller philanthropy, expended $122 million on black education through a wide-ranging programmatic agenda. The Julius Rosenwald Fund (1917-48) is best known for the rural school building program that constructed schoolhouses, teachers' homes, and shops throughout the South during the early 1930s. A lesser-known initiative on the part of both foundations was the utilization of fellowship programs that enabled southern blacks to obtain graduate and professional education at northern institutions. This article discusses the barriers to graduate education for African Americans during the first half of the twentieth century, the characteristics of the General Education Board and Rosenwald Fund fellowship programs, and the role of the fellowship programs in building the institutional competence of black colleges and universities.