We examine the core curricula of the master’s degree programs of thirty planning schools in the United States and Canada and discuss patterns in core requirements. We compare current planning core curricula to those described more than fifteen years ago by John Friedmann and explore several questions surrounding core curricula, planning practice, and the demands of academic legitimacy. The article concludes with a brief case study highlighting the implementation of a new core curriculum at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.