Immune cell-mediated tissue injury is the common feature of different inflammatory diseases, yet the pathogenetic mechanisms and cell types involved vary significantly. Hypereosinophilic Syndrome (HES) represents a group of inflammatory diseases that are characterized by increased numbers of pathogenic eosinophilic granulocytes in the peripheral blood and diverse organs. Based on clinical and laboratory findings, various forms of HES have been defined, yet the molecular mechanism and potential signaling pathways that drive eosinophil expansion remain largely unknown. Here we show that mice deficient of the serine/ threonine-specific protein kinase NF-κB inducing kinase (NIK) develop a HES-like disease, reflected by progressive blood and tissue eosinophilia, tissue injury and premature death at around 25–30 weeks of age. Similar to the lymphocytic form of HES, CD4+ T-cells from NIK-deficient mice express increased levels of T-helper 2 (Th2)-associated cytokines, and eosinophilia and survival of NIK deficient mice could completely be prevented by genetic ablation of CD4+ T-cells. Experiments based on bone marrow chimeric mice, however, demonstrated that inflammation in NIK-deficient mice depended on radiation-resistant tissues, implicating that NIK-deficient immune cells mediate inflammation in a non-autonomous manner. Surprisingly, disease development was independent of NIKs known function as IkappaB kinase (IKK)-α kinase, as mice carrying a mutation in the activation loop of IKKα, which is phosphorylated by NIK, did not develop inflammatory disease. Our data show that NIK activity in non-hematopoietic cells controls Th2-cell development and prevents eosinophil-driven inflammatory disease, most likely using a signaling pathway that operates independent of the known NIK substrate IKKα.