This paper describes the recent increase in and diversity of regulations relating to Indigenous language teaching in the United States, and analyzes these regulations in relation to 1) the institutional format of the certification processes (characterized as mainstream versus separate), 2) the relative control of different social actors (characterized as community actors versus central authority actors), and 3) the language capacity or learning goals that the regulations support (characterized as full immersion versus limited enrichment). In addition to looking at teacher certification as an important practical component of Indigenous language education which can be managed in different ways, I consider its significance as an ideologically-driven process through which language norms and authority may be created and (following Blommaert et al., 2009) policed by various social actors. I conclude that it is valuable to consider different systems for regulating and institutionalizing language education, and the relationship between these systems and local ideologies of language education.