Researchable problems in the animal sciences are often highly intricate, and progress toward their resolution is often best achieved through integration of several scientific disciplines. Interdisciplinary research involving animal scientists does not need to transcend departmental boundaries because our departments by definition comprise disciplinary specialization in nutrition, genetics, physiology, biochemistry, and so on. However, identifying and networking with disciplinarians in other departments and universities can be a daunting task, especially for new faculty members whose discipline-focused graduate training may not have exposed them to the scrutiny of persons who were not trained within the same scholarly limitations, culture and traditions. For example, a legitimate concern among social scientists is that they are often recruited to join a natural-sciences project too late to provide input toward experimental design and data collection that can often provide more productive and interesting opportunities for socioeconomic analyses. Involving external disciplinarians early in the planning stages of research, even if they do not ultimately collaborate, can be extremely useful in terms of exchanging ideas for collecting useful data and becoming familiar with each others’ work. Another hurdle to interdisciplinary research is mutual ignorance or naiveté among disciplines that can feed unrealistic expectations of capabilities and deliverables. Such impediments can be overcome by dialog and working through graduate students; seating external disciplinarians on graduate student advisory committees is a good way for them to become familiar with new researchable topics through thesis/dissertation literature reviews. The unique governance system and academic culture of universities should ideally provide an environment where interdisciplinary research can flourish, but this is not always the case. Faculty need to be knowledgeable of and sensitive to norms of valuation and reward within disciplines other than their own, and new faculty especially need to be cognizant of evaluation and reward systems at their institutions pertaining to single-investigator vs. collaborative scholarship.