This paper presents an analysis about the figures of master, professor and teacher, identifying the elements that historically have given life to those teaching subjects in determined contexts.At the same time, it returns to the Latin American tradition where the educator´s work is claimed as an emblematical figure for alternative education processes that in many aspects strain and enhance the debates about the role of the master and the teacher today.This analysis is supported on the concrete experience of the educator´s figure in the Intercultural Indigenous Autonomous University (UAIIN) that is the university of the Regional Indigenous Council of Cauca (CRIC) in Colombia.