American Indian studies should have a theoretical and methodological focus sufficient to organize an academic discipline. A primary focus of American Indian studies as a discipline is to conceptualize, research, and explain patterns of American Indian individual and collective community choices and strategies when confronted with relations with the American state and society. American Indian cultural emphasis on retaining culture, identity, self-government, and stewardship of land and resulting contestations with the U.S. government and society forms a body of empirical social action that constitutes the subject matter of American Indian studies as an academic discipline. American Indian studies defined in this way should be capable of generating theory, performing empirical research, making generalizations, commenting on policy, and supporting the goals and values of American Indian nations. Although multidisciplinary approaches to teaching and researching American Indians has improved in recent decades, relatively little conceptual progress has been made toward defining American Indian studies as a discipline and toward developing theory and research that presents a coherent theoretical and methodological approach to the study of indigenous peoples. Much of contemporary research and theorizing about American Indian nations is absorbed into many disciplinary fields and are considered variations on more general theories. In this article, the author talks about American Indian studies or indigenous studies and explores a discipline--a theoretical, research, and empirical focus--that can provide full or complete analysis of American Indian history and culture. (Contains 16 notes.)