This case history, based on fieldwork carried out in 1968, traces the development of two governing élites in the provincial town of Lira, which is located in northern Uganda and has a population of about 5,000 people. It is the administrative and commercial centre for the 353,000 people, primarily members of the Lango tribe, who live in Lango District. The town's population is about 73 per cent African (80 per cent of them Langi), 23 per cent Asian (Indian, Pakistani, and Goan) and 2 per cent European. In 1968 it was the ‘home town’ of the President of Uganda, where the interrelations between local, regional, and national systems of government were particularly transparent.