This paper has the objective of analyzing the first decade of the National Campaign for the Improvement of High Level Personnel (CAPES) that covers the period between the years 1951 and 1960. It places the CAPES institution within the apparatus of the federal government in a historic context marked by the nationalist-development model. The path to acheiving this objective has as essential elements the utilization of reports, letters, presidential messages and legal documents articulated through strategies and tactics by individuals-collectives that have built an institutional network that led CAPES to take on a central role in the elaboration of public education policies within Ministry of Education. This centrality had as its result the attempt to build a national system of graduate study that constitutes a legacy to be studied now.