TIAA-CREF Inflation-Linked Bond Fund

TIAA-CREF Inflation-Linked Bond Fund

Investment objective

The Fund seeks a long-term rate of return that outpaces inflation, primarily through investment in inflation-linked bonds.

Fees and expenses

This table describes the fees and expenses that you may pay if you buy and hold shares of the Fund:

SHAREHOLDER FEES (fees paid directly from your investment)

Shareholder Fees	TIAA-CREF Inflation-Linked Bond Fund Advisor Class
Maximum sales charge imposed on purchases (percentage of offering price)	none
Maximum deferred sales charge	none
Maximum sales charge imposed on reinvested dividends and other distributions	none
Redemption or exchange fee	none
Maximum account fee	none

ANNUAL FUND OPERATING EXPENSES (expenses that you pay each year as a percentage of the value of your investment)

Annual Fund Operating Expenses	TIAA-CREF Inflation-Linked Bond Fund Advisor Class
Management fees	0.24%
Distribution (Rule 12b-1) fees
Other expenses	0.12%	[1]
Total annual Fund operating expenses	0.36%
Waivers and expense reimbursements		[2]
Total annual Fund operating expenses after fee waiver and/or expense reimbursement	0.36%

Example

This example is intended to help you compare the cost of investing in shares of the Fund with the cost of investing in other mutual funds. The example assumes that you invest $10,000 in the Fund for the time periods indicated and then redeem all your shares at the end of those periods. The example also assumes that your investment has a 5% return each year and that the Fund’s operating expenses, before expense reimbursements, remain the same. The example assumes that the Fund’s expense reimbursement agreement will remain in place through December 3, 2016, but that there will be no waiver or expense reimbursement agreement in effect thereafter. Although your actual costs may be higher or lower, based on these assumptions your costs would be:

Expense Example	TIAA-CREF Inflation-Linked Bond Fund Advisor Class USD ($)
1 year	$ 37
3 years	$ 116

Portfolio turnover

The Fund pays transaction costs, such as commissions, when it buys and sells securities (or “turns over” its portfolio). A higher portfolio turnover rate may indicate higher transaction costs and may result in higher taxes when Fund shares are held in a taxable account. These costs, which are not reflected in annual fund operating expenses or in the example, affect the Fund’s performance. During the fiscal year ended March 31, 2015, the Fund’s portfolio turnover rate was 17% of the average value of its portfolio.

Principal investment strategies

Under normal circumstances, the Fund’s investment adviser, Teachers Advisors, Inc. (“Advisors”), invests at least 80% of the Fund’s assets in fixed-income securities whose principal value increases or decreases based on changes in the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (“CPI-U”), over the life of the security. Typically, the Fund will invest in U.S. Treasury Inflation-Indexed Securities (“TIIS”). The Fund can also invest in (1) other inflation-indexed bonds issued or guaranteed by the U.S. Government or its agencies, by corporations and other U.S. domiciled issuers, as well as foreign governments, and (2) money market instruments or other short-term securities. For purposes of the 80% investment policy, the term “assets” means net assets, plus the amount of any borrowings for investment purposes.

Like conventional bonds, inflation-indexed bonds generally pay interest at fixed intervals and return the principal at maturity. Unlike conventional bonds, an inflation-indexed bond’s principal or interest is adjusted periodically to reflect changes in a specified inflation index. Inflation-indexed bonds are designed to preserve purchasing power over the life of the bond while paying a “real” rate of interest (i.e., a return over and above the inflation rate). These bonds are generally issued at a fixed interest rate that is lower than that of conventional bonds of comparable maturity and quality, but they generally retain their value against inflation over time.

The principal amount of a TIIS bond is adjusted periodically for inflation using the CPI-U. Interest is paid twice a year. The interest rate is fixed, but the amount of each interest payment varies as the principal is adjusted for inflation. The principal amount of a TIIS instrument may diminish in times of deflation. However, the U.S. Treasury guarantees that the final principal payment at maturity is at least the original principal amount of the bond. The interest and principal components of the bonds may be “stripped” or sold separately. The Fund can buy or sell either component.

The Fund may also invest in inflation-indexed bonds issued or guaranteed by foreign governments and their agencies, as well as other foreign issuers. These investments are usually designed to track the inflation rate in the issuing country. Under most circumstances, the Fund’s investments in inflation-linked bonds of foreign issuers are generally less than 20% of its assets.

Effective January 1, 2016, the Fund’s benchmark index will change from the Barclays U.S. Treasury Inflation Protected Securities (TIPS) Index (Series-L) (the “Barclays TIPS Index”) to the Barclays U.S. Treasury Inflation Protected Securities (TIPS) 1–10 Year Index (the “Barclays TIPS 1–10 Index”). As of September 30, 2015, the duration of the Barclays TIPS Index was 7.9 years and the duration of the Barclays TIPS 1–10 Index was 5.5 years. Although the Fund may invest in fixed-income securities of any duration, typically, the Fund invests in corporate and foreign inflation-indexed bonds that are similar in duration and maturity as those of U.S. Government inflation-indexed bonds.

The Fund may purchase and sell futures, options, swaps, forwards and other fixed-income derivative instruments to carry out the Fund’s investment strategies. In particular, the Fund may purchase and sell interest rate futures to attempt to manage duration and/or certain risks. The Fund also may invest in any fixed-income securities provided that no more than 5% of its assets are invested in fixed-income securities rated below investment-grade.

Principal investment risks

You could lose money over short or long periods by investing in this Fund. An investment in the Fund, due to the nature of the Fund’s portfolio holdings, typically is subject to the following principal investment risks:

· Interest Rate Risk (a type of Market Risk)—The risk that increases in interest rates can cause the prices of fixed-income investments to decline. This risk is heightened to the extent the Fund invests in longer duration fixed-income investments and during periods when prevailing interest rates are low or negative. As of the date of this Prospectus, interest rates in the United States and in certain foreign markets are at or near historic lows, which may increase the Fund’s exposure to risks associated with rising interest rates. In general, changing interest rates could have unpredictable effects on the markets and may expose fixed-income and related markets to heightened volatility.

· Market Volatility, Liquidity and Valuation Risk (types of Market Risk)—The risk that volatile or dramatic reductions in trading activity make it difficult for the Fund to properly value its investments and that the Fund may not be able to purchase or sell an investment at an attractive price, if at all.

· Income Volatility Risk—The risk that the level of current income from a portfolio of fixed-income investments may decline in certain interest rate environments.

· Special Risks for Inflation-Indexed Bonds—The risk that interest payments on, or market values of, inflation-indexed investments decline because of a decline in inflation (or deflation) or changes in investors’ and/or the market’s inflation expectations. In addition, inflation indices may not reflect the true rate of inflation.

· Credit Risk (a type of Issuer Risk)—The risk that the issuer of fixed-income investments may not be able or willing to meet interest or principal payments when the payments become due.

· Fixed-Income Foreign Investment Risk—Investment in fixed-income securities or financial instruments of foreign issuers involves increased risks due to adverse issuer, political, regulatory, currency, market or economic developments. These developments may impact the ability of a foreign debt issuer to make timely and ultimate payments on its debt obligations to the Fund or impair the Fund’s ability to enforce its rights against the foreign debt issuer. These risks are heightened in emerging or developing markets. Foreign investments may also be less liquid and more difficult to value than investments in U.S. issuers.

· Active Management Risk—The risk that Advisors’ strategy, investment selection or trading execution may cause the Fund to underperform relative to the benchmark index or mutual funds with similar investment objectives.

· Derivatives Risk—The risks associated with investing in derivatives may be different and greater than the risks associated with directly investing in the underlying securities and other instruments. The Fund may use futures, options, single name or index credit default swaps, or forwards, and the Fund may also use more complex derivatives such as swaps that might present liquidity, credit and counterparty risk. When investing in derivatives, the Fund may lose more than the principal amount invested.

Please see the non-summary portion of the Prospectus for more detailed information about the risks described above.

Past performance

The following chart and table help illustrate some of the risks of investing in the Fund by showing changes in the Fund’s performance from year to year. Because the Fund only recently began offering Advisor Class shares, the performance information shown is for the Fund’s existing classes, which would have substantially similar annual returns to the new Advisor Class because all of the Fund’s classes are invested in the same portfolio of securities with the only difference being that the classes do not have the same expenses. The bar chart shows the annual total returns of the Institutional Class of the Fund, before taxes, in each full calendar year for the last ten years. Because the expenses vary across share classes, the performance of the Institutional Class may vary from the other share classes. Below the bar chart are the best and worst returns of the Institutional Class for a calendar quarter during the full calendar-year periods covered by the bar chart. The performance table following the bar chart shows the Fund’s average annual total returns for the Institutional, Retirement, Premier and Retail Classes over the applicable one-year, five-year, ten-year and since-inception periods ended December 31, 2014, and how those returns compare to those of the Fund’s benchmark index. After-tax performance is also shown only for Institutional Class shares, and after-tax returns for the other classes of shares will vary from the after-tax returns presented for Institutional Class shares. The performance in the bar chart and table has not been restated to reflect any difference between the existing classes’ expenses and estimated Advisor Class expenses. Because existing class shares generally are expected to have different expenses than Advisor Class shares, if the charts below had been restated with Advisor Class expenses, performance would have differed.

The returns shown below reflect previous agreements by Advisors to waive or reimburse the Fund for certain fees and expenses. Without these waivers and reimbursements, the returns of the Fund would have been lower. Past performance of the Fund (before and after taxes) is not necessarily an indication of how it will perform in the future. The benchmark index listed below is unmanaged, and you cannot invest directly in an index. The returns for the benchmark index reflect no deduction for fees, expenses or taxes.

For current performance information of each share class, including performance to the most recent month-end, please visit www.tiaa-cref.org.

ANNUAL TOTAL RETURNS FOR THE INSTITUTIONAL CLASS SHARES (%)† Inflation-Linked Bond Fund

^†The year-to-date return as of the most recent calendar quarter, which ended on September 30, 2015, was -0.79%.

Best quarter: 5.32%, for the quarter ended March 31, 2008. Worst quarter: -7.01%, for the quarter ended June 30, 2013.

AVERAGE ANNUAL TOTAL RETURNS For the Periods Ended December 31, 2014

Average Annual Returns - TIAA-CREF Inflation-Linked Bond Fund	1 Year	5 Years	10 Years		Inception Date
Institutional Class	3.42%	3.87%	4.08%		Oct. 01, 2002
Retail Class	3.17%	3.58%	3.88%		Oct. 01, 2002
Retirement Class	3.20%	3.62%	3.88%	[1]	Mar. 31, 2006
Premier Class	3.31%	3.70%	3.99%	[1]	Sep. 30, 2009
After Taxes on Distributions | Institutional Class	2.53%	2.94%	2.86%
After Taxes on Distributions and Sale of Fund Shares | Institutional Class	1.96%	2.66%	2.73%
Barclays U.S. Treasury Inflation Protected Securities (TIPS) Index (Series-L) (reflects no deductions for fees, expenses or taxes)	3.64%	4.11%	4.37%

Current performance of the Fund’s shares may be higher or lower than that shown above.

After-tax returns are calculated using the historical highest individual federal marginal income tax rates in effect during the periods shown and do not reflect the impact of state and local taxes. Actual after-tax returns depend on the investor’s tax situation and may differ from those shown. The after-tax returns shown are not relevant to investors who hold their Fund shares through tax-deferred arrangements such as 401(a), 401(k) or 403(b) plans or Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs). After-tax returns are shown for only one class, and after-tax returns for other classes will vary.

For the Fund’s most current 30-day yield, please call the Fund at 800 842-2252.

[1] Estimates for the current fiscal year.

[2] Under the Fund's expense reimbursement arrangements, the Fund's investment adviser, Teachers Advisors Inc., has contractually agreed to reimburse the Fund for any Total Annual Operating Expenses (excluding interest, taxes, brokerage commissions or other transactional expenses, Acquired Fund Fees and Expenses and extraordinary expenses) that exceed 0.45% of the average daily net assets for Advisor Class shares of the Fund. These expense reimbursement arrangements will continue through at least December 3, 2016, unless changed with approval of the Board of Trustees.

[1] The performance shown for the Retirement Class and Premier Class that is prior to their inception date is based on performance of the Fund's Institutional Class. The performance for these periods has not been restated to reflect higher expenses of the Retirement Class and Premier Class. If those expenses had been reflected, the performance would have been lower.