In the 1970s Iranian students in the United States were active in working to end the Shah's regime. This study looks at Iranian students’ critiques and activism during the most lucrative years of the Iranian Revolution, between 1977 and 1979. During those years there were about 54,000 Iranian students in the United States, representing the largest foreign student populations. Due to government repression, organizations within Iran were unable to effectually organize. As a result, students abroad often politicized and coordinated together, creating an important form of opposition to the Shah. Through vocal demonstrations and publications, Iranian students were able to undermine the Shah’s international legitimacy and support, while, at the same time, they set an example of civil disobedience to their friends and family members at home. This is a history of students in a quasi-political exile. As the United States represented freedoms and personal rights to Iranian students, it also represented a nation which had strongly supported its ally in the Middle East, the Shah. This study addresses how Iranian students read American policy, their criticism of it, and the role Iranian students played as a vanguard of protest in opposition against the Shah. Placing this group in larger contexts, this study also analyzes how the American mass media and the Alternative media viewed the Revolution and Iranian student activism within America and how Iranian student organizations reacted.