This article presents a case study of a community-university physical activity initiative in which the author operated as a change agent responsible for facilitating community intersectoral collaboration, capacity, and autonomy. Change agents in community-institution initiatives typically work with communities or organizations to initiate and maintain a change effort. Using a first-person, insider action research approach, the change agent examined a set of dilemmas and dynamics she faced throughout the course of the initiative, and framed these in terms of tensions occurring along three continuums: (1) process-product, defined by the challenge of finding a balance between building capacity and delivering concrete and timely results; (2) insider-outsider, linked to the duality of roles of the change agent and community partners, and ensuing conflicts of identity, territory, loyalty, and accountability; and (3) bottom-up/top-down, associated with the difficulty of respecting local circumstances and needs while simultaneously operating within set parameters. The author critically reflects on the role of institutions involved as partners in community-institution initiatives, and draws attention to the complexity of the change agent's role in such initiatives. Recommendations for practice are offered, including the need for communityinstitution initiatives to provide sufficient time and resources for community capacity-building processes to develop, properly support change agents in their multiple roles and core functions, and develop their own capacities to engage in community capacity-building and change.