Joseph Milton Nance was an American historian and educator with a focus on the history of Texas. From 1941 until his 1979 retirement, he taught at Texas A&M University, and he was the department chair of the Department of History and Government from 1958 to 1968, and of the successor Department of History until 1973. The J. Milton Nance Lectures in Texas History lecture series at TAMU is named in his honor. During the 1966–1967 year, he served on a program committee of the Texas State Historical Association. For much of his life, he lived in College Station, Texas.