In SharePoint 2003 there was no easy way to use impersonation. In SharePoint 2007 there is a nice and easy build in way to use impersonation: SPSite site = new SPSite("SiteCollection_Url");SPWeb web = site.OpenWeb();SPUser user = web.AllUsers["User_Name"]; SPUserToken token = user.UserToken;SPSite impersonatedSiteCollection = new SPSite("SiteCollection_Url", token); You can also check whether an SPSite object is using impersonation: SPSite siteCollection = SPControl.GetContextSite(HttpContext.Current);bool impersonating = siteCollection.Impersonating;