Abstract: The establishment of Regional Cooperation so called the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) will certainly have many implications to both economic as well as non-economic well-being of the people in Indonesia. Of these implications, higher education systems will no doubt be affected by the establishment of the AEC. As a consequence, leadership at higher educational level becomes important to minimize negative impacts of the AEC on the higher education systems. This is partly because higher education is the key to national development particularly in producing a high quality human resources and qualified professionals. These conditions will further increase the nation's competitiveness and productivity of the economy. This paper aims at examining the role of leadership in achieving high quality of higher education in facing the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC). Data and information collected were heavily based on secondary data and government regulation advanced in the literatures. The study argued that the leadership factor plays significant role in achieving high quality of higher education al institution. Therefore, leadership of higher education or universities needs to be improved as it can improve the quality of universities.