A defining feature of American higher education at the end of the twentieth century has been the dialogue at and among universities about how to re-engage more productively with their local and regional communities. One component of that discussion is how to recognize and reward “the scholarship of engagement”—scholarly activity that is both grounded in the best current research and teaching and aimed at contributing to practical solutions to real problems. Just over a decade ago the University of Wisconsin–Extension embarked on a journey to address that dilemma. This article details how an institution can build on the core principles presented in Boyer’s Scholarship Reconsidered (1990) and Glassick, Huber, and Maeroff’s Scholarship Assessed (1997) to develop a robust definition of the scholarship of engagement and a rigorous model to assess it.