Investigating how the public sector adopts technologies to process and analyze very large datasets is crucial for understanding governance in the digital age. The authors of this article examine a large government agency, the United States Border Patrol (USBP), an organization that is in the early phases of building big data capabilities. They argue the wide-scale adoption of big data analytics will require trial-and-error processes coordinated by organizational leadership in partnership with front-line employees who make the technology relevant to their needs in the field.