The Pan-American Intercollegiate Championship, organized by US Chess Federation, is the premier event in collegiate chess in Western hemisphere. It dates back to 1946 since when it is held on the annual basis; until 1964 it was a biennial event. Many of the finest academic institutions across the land have vied for the title including Harvard, Yale, Berkeley, Princeton, MIT and Columbia. The event was a US-only until 1969 when Canadian teams were allowed to participate too, from 1972 it has been open to all the universities from North, Central and South America. Still, the event has been overwhelmingly dominated by the US teams; Canadian Universities Toronto and McGill are the only non-US teams to ever win the top trophy.

The event has the atmosphere of a mass chess festival (as much as 123 teams took part in 1975 which is impressive figure even given that majority of competing sides were scholastic teams), with a high school team tournament and an individual Open going on at the same time. In recent years, UMBC and UTD have distinguished themselves as the dominant schools in collegiate chess. With thousands of dollars in chess scholarships annually, they are able to attract some of the strongest players across the globe. Recent winners list includes such big names as GM Onischuk, late GM Wojtkiewicz of Poland, GM Ramirez of Costa Rica, IM Charbonneau of Canada or IM Simutowe of Zambia. The Pan-American University Chess Championship is different event.