The American Association for Gifted Children (AAGC) has been located in the Social Science Research Institute at Duke University since 2001 and continues the mission of the two pioneer educational leaders and founders, Dr. Ruth Strang and Miss Pauline Williamson who believed that "the gifted were the most neglected children in our democracy."  AAGC’s mission since 2001 is to continue to focus on the highly gifted, but with a new goal to increase opportunities for the most neglected and underserved in gifted programs.  These underserved populations include children who have limited English language experiences, economic disadvantages, educational disadvantages, disabilities, or factors that make it difficult to demonstrate potential on traditional identification measures of talented and gifted. They have historically been (and continue to be) underrepresented in gifted programs.

AAGC is an advocacy organization and collaborates with other research groups at Duke and with the Exceptional Children Division of the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction to carry out the mission and goals of the organization. AAGC is currently collaborating with a new center on Research Education and Development of Youth (REDY) and local school districts to conduct research on a Javits Education Nurturing Program to close the achievement gap and to increase identification of students for gifted programs from underserved groups.

Since coming to Duke University in 1989, AAGC has been affiliated with the Talent Identification Program (TIP), the Center for Child and Family Policy and the Research Network on Racial and Ethnic Inequality at Duke University.