Evolving from a cluster built on second-hand donations, Hummingbird has become an essential campus HPC resource focused on building a vibrant HPC community of practice, supporting underserved researchers and expanding the impact of research IT staff. This is the extraordinary true story of how a dedicated group of UCSC Information Technology Services volunteers grew the Hummingbird Cluster into an essential service for the campus. Presented as a case study, this talk will highlight how UCSC answered the need for an open-access, general purpose campus cluster to serve emerging and small-to-medium scale computational and instructional needs. This case study will provide a model to other campus efforts to pioneer new services and thrive without huge budgets or big teams.