Graduation date: 2007The image of Native Americans in the United States has changed through the passage of time. Part of this change is directly related to the representation of their cultures in a museum setting and the inception of cultural resource laws that govern them. This research looks at four museums, two in the United States and two in the United Kingdom, and compares their representation of Native Americans. Unlike museums in the United States, museums in the United Kingdom do not have to comply with laws that protect source communities. A source community is defined as the original group that an object found in a museum setting originates. Laws like the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (1990) have shaped the relationship between museums and Native Americans in the United States. It has fostered a deeper understanding of Native American worldviews in American museum displays. This research demonstrates how American museums have changed the way they plan for and create displays about Native Americans because of cultural resource laws. This research reveals three movements in the United States that have occurred, due in part to cultural resource laws. First, the dichotomy between museums’ relationship to their visitors in comparison to their responsibilities to source communities and how this has shifted; second, funding and the power struggle it has created in museums. Third, the issue of repatriation of objects, both nationally and internationally, due to the variety of opinions that surround this topic; and how this demonstrates a better working relationship with Native Americans in the United States, and is cause for great strife for the United Kingdom and other countries. These three illuminate the uneven relationship between museums and Native Americans and how cultural resource laws in the United States have begun to alter this relationship. NAGPRA has helped to reestablish Native Americans’ legal authority over their culture in the United States.