This paper summarises current ideas about the place of academic development in the twenty-first century university. It focuses on aligning the leadership and management of academic development work with the ‘ownership’ of such work by its key stakeholders—teaching academics, university management and the wider academic development community—and with an institutional quality agenda. It offers insights taken from the authors’ experiences in one AD unit over a five-year period, and from the diverse perspectives on its work held by various stakeholders, into critical issues that underlie efforts to improve the management of academic development. It outlines the challenges in trying to elucidate the work of academic development within a quality management framework and argues for advancing its work through clearer articulation of its principles, standards, performance tracking and intended impact.