By Dexter Filkins

Suleimaniah, Iraq — In this corner of Iraq largely untouched by war, people are able to focus on the more normal attributes of building a nation — like starting a new university.

In a ceremony here this week, Iraqi leaders gathered to mark the groundbreaking for the American University of Iraq, a private institution they hope will one day grow to mirror the more well-known American universities in Beirut and Cairo. The first classes, which will be conducted in English, are set to begin in a donated office this fall.

In the shorter term, supporters hope that the new university will stand as a symbol for the sort of positive change that is possible — if not in all of Iraq, then at least in its Kurdish north.

“This shows what Iraq could be like,” Barham Salih, Iraq’s deputy prime minister, told the gathering here, which included the American ambassador, Ryan C. Crocker, and the Iraqi president, Jalal Talabani. “This is a dream that has to come true.”

They got a pretty good down payment on the dream this week. After a sumptuous lunch for local businessmen here, Mr. Salih secured promises for $10 million in donations. That, along with the other pledges secured so far — including one for $10.5 million from the United States Congress — brought the total promised so far to $40 million. In meetings with Americans and Iraqis, Mr. Salih was pleading for as much as he could get. “Your moral support is good, but your financial support is even better,” Mr. Salih said to Mr. Crocker.

The construction of the university here is another measure of the growing distance between the predominantly Kurdish northern territories and the rest of Iraq. The three majority Kurdish provinces, which constitute about 15 percent of Iraq’s population, have experienced relative stability since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003 and are developing rapidly on their own. While a university like this might naturally be found in Baghdad, Iraq’s capital, the violence there makes such a project inconceivable at this point.

Pro-American sentiment still runs high among the Kurds, too. The Kurds bore the brunt of Saddam Hussein’s furies and benefited from more than a decade of American protection after the Persian Gulf war in 1991. That protection allowed the Kurds to set up the near-independent state that they have today. In much of the rest of Iraq, four years of war have left America unpopular among many Iraqis.

The money raised for the project so far is enough to begin construction of the campus, on about 400 acres near the airport. The land was donated by the Kurdish regional government, which operates in virtual autonomy from the central government in Baghdad. The university’s backers are hoping to raise an additional $90 million to complete the construction of the first phase, which is planned to include classrooms, dormitories and a museum.

So far, the university’s board of trustees has hired an American chancellor, Owen Cargol, and a staff of 23. The first undergraduate classes are set to begin in October and the graduate-level courses in November. University officials are planning a curriculum heavily tilted toward business skills, with undergraduate and graduate degrees in areas like information technology and management. Degrees in the liberal arts, and in petroleum engineering and other areas, are planned for later.

University officials are not expecting many students this fall; probably, they said, no more than 50. The plan is to accommodate about 1,000 students by 2009, the target date for completion of the first phase of construction. The American University of Iraq is being modeled after the successful and influential English-language institutions in Beirut and Cairo, which are known for their high academic standards and competitive admission policies. Those universities have a big head start: the American University in Beirut was founded in 1866 by American missionaries; the American University in Cairo was established in 1919.

At the American University of Iraq, entering students will be expected to be fluent in English and to have scored in the top 20 percent on their college entrance exams. Tuition is being set at $10,000 per academic year, an extraordinary sum in Iraq, where higher education at public institutions is free. The university’s leaders are planning to make scholarships of varying amounts available to every student.

The university’s leaders are hoping that an institution with an American name and American standards will prove attractive here. Fouad Ajami, director of the Middle Eastern studies program at Johns Hopkins University and a member of the Iraqi university’s board of trustees, put it this way: “America’s greatest exports are Hollywood and higher education.”