Public and private higher education funding models are shifting from traditional funding of schools and departments to a model in which schools increasingly rely on revenue other than tuition to fulfill and supplement activities related to their core missions. In this paper we discuss what nursing deans need to know about non tuition funding in this contemporary paradigm. We focus on how the Duke University School of Nursing created a Business Development Initiative (BDI) that provides additional revenue to help meets the financial needs of its' programs while nurturing the entrepreneurial spirit of faculty and staff. This BDI holds promise as a model that can be adapted by other schools seeking to support education, research and professional development initiatives without relying solely on tuition, tax dollars, endowments and/or grants.