Higher Education (HE) plays a major role in building a nation’s intellectual capital required for poverty reduction, sustainable development and positive engagement in the global knowledge economy. This topic guide aims to answer the questions, how can the capacity of HE systems and structures in LMICs best be built and how can effective partnerships be generated to best support the process. To answer these questions, the guide presents evidence of the critical role of HE for overall national development, examines the key policy issues and barriers to building capacity in HE in low income settings and reviews the evidence from a number of different innovations that have attempted to overcome these barriers.