Mentoring is not a new concept and there is no doubt that it is essential for fostering the success of student nurses’ education career. The aim of this paper is to discuss nursing researcher as a mentor in tertiary health institutions in the Gambia based on a review of the literature. Very few tertiary health institutes exist in The Gambia. The advent of higher nursing education (under and post graduate) is very recent. In order, to keep pace with increasing demand of nursing services coupled with rising academic and professional standards, nursing researchers have begun to evolve in these institutions. Nursing lecturers in these training institutions are expected to be nursing researchers However, none of these nurse researchers has a research grant to conduct nursing research. Nursing researchers are not trained on mentoring skills and mentorship is mainly informal in tertiary health institutions. It is therefore paramount to train nursing researchers in mentoring skills to promote excellence in education, research and health care delivery in the country.