Of the many CGIAR research centres around the world there is none as historically important to the organization’s international development of wheat and maize interests than the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), headquartered in Mexico. CIMMYT, launched in 1966, is both a local and a global creation. Rooted in Mexico’s approach to agricultural research, CIMMYT’s mission is equally intertwined with international development promises and growing food security concerns of the mid-twentieth century. Initial research that led to Norman Borlaug’s famous high-yielding hybrid wheat seeds took advantage of Mexico’s microclimates – and existing experimental stations – to solve narrower agronomic questions while later programs expanded in focus to include an increased socioeconomic bent and emphasis on the farmer. This chapter examines how CIMMYT, modeled after the successful Mexican Agricultural Program of the 1940s, evolved from a nation-centred agenda to become a mold-breaking international organization, while remaining rooted in and influenced by Mexican realities. The chapter illustrates that to speak of CGIAR is to engage with locally centred histories.