Anyone trying to understand the relationship between African studies and study abroad in Africa faces a daunting task. One must analyze a diversity of ideas and issues emanating from various professional publications and organizations, as well as research specific initiatives within numerous institutions, that have helped define and shape the field of African studies over at least the last half-century. Moreover, it soon becomes evident that the development of African studies, including study abroad in Africa, cannot be understood in isolation but must be placed within the larger context of the development of, as well as debates about, international and area studies and study abroad in U.S. higher education. These must be placed in the even wider context of the interplay of forces shaping higher education in the United States, and increasingly abroad in Africa and the African diaspora, especially at the undergraduate level. Finally, while the fortunes of African studies and study abroad in Africa have been inextricably connected, drawing direct or even indirect causal relationships is ambiguous in many aspects. In brief, the inquiry into the connections between African studies and study abroad in Africa is at a very rudimentary stage, scarcely as yet receiving the attention by the scholarly community inside and outside of Africa that it deserves.