What do academics think about their "responsibilities" to the public? This chapter provides a view of "the public intellectual" by examining how academics construct their relationship to the public. Drawing on in-depth interviews with physicists at universities in the United States (US) and the United Kingdom (UK), we illustrate a typological approach that could be applied to understanding the public intellectual in any academic discipline and points to implications for how universities and the academic profession can engage with the public. Academics should view themselves as stewards of the public good and be able to articulate how such a role is manifest in their work.