A central challenge of 21st Century society is to bring the nature and scope of the human endeavor into a sustainable relationship with the biosphere.  As an important contribution to meeting this challenge, we believe that environmental literacy -- the ability to think critically about the environmental, social and economic dimensions of human-environment interactions and make responsible life choices -- should be a basic competency for all university graduates.  The Environmental Literacy and Sustainability Initiative (ELSI) is a coalition of faculty, staff and students working to promote an environmentally literate university population and a campus that serves as a model of sustainable human-environment interactions.