Form 497K TIAA-CREF FUNDS

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December 9, 2016 10:03 AM EST

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Summary Prospectus

DECEMBER 9, 2016

TIAA-CREF International Small-Cap Equity Fund

of the TIAA-CREF Funds


Class:	Institutional	Advisor	Premier	Retirement	Retail
Ticker:	TIISX	TAISX	TPISX	TTISX	TLISX

Before you invest, you may want to review the Fund’s prospectus, which contains more information about the Fund and its risks. You can find the Fund’s prospectus and other information about the Fund online at www.tiaa.org/tcfisce. You can also get this information at no cost by calling 800-223-1200 or by sending an e-mail request to [email protected]. The Fund’s prospectus and Statement of Additional Information (“SAI”), each dated December 9, 2016, as subsequently supplemented, are incorporated into this Summary Prospectus by reference and may be obtained free of charge at the website, phone number or e-mail address noted above.

Investment objective

The Fund seeks a favorable long-term total return, mainly through capital appreciation.

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)


	Institutional Class	Advisor Class	Premier Class	Retirement Class	Retail Class
Maximum sales charge imposed on purchases (percentage of offering price)	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%
Maximum deferred sales charge	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%
Maximum sales charge imposed on reinvested dividends and other distributions	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%
Redemption or exchange fee	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%
Account maintenance fee (annual fee on accounts under $2,000)	0%	0%	0%	0%	$15.00

TIAA-CREF International Small-Cap Equity Fund ■ Summary Prospectus 1

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


		Institutional Class	Advisor Class	Premier Class	Retirement Class	Retail Class

Management fees		0.65%	0.65%	0.65%	0.65%	0.65%
Distribution (Rule 12b-1) fees		—	—	0.15%	—	0.25%
Other expenses¹		0.07%	0.13%	0.07%	0.32%	0.21%
Total annual Fund operating expenses		0.72%	0.78%	0.87%	0.97%	1.11%
Waivers and expense reimbursements²		—	—	—	—	—
Total annual Fund operating expenses after fee
	waiver and/or expense reimbursement	0.72%	0.78%	0.87%	0.97%	1.11%

1	Estimates for the current fiscal year.
2	Under the Fund’s expense reimbursement arrangements, the Fund’s investment adviser, Teachers Advisors, LLC, has contractually agreed to reimburse the Fund for any Total annual Fund operating expenses (excluding interest, taxes, brokerage commissions or other transactional expenses, Acquired Fund fees and expenses and extraordinary expenses) that exceed: (i) 0.75% of average daily net assets for Institutional Class shares; (ii) 0.90% of average daily net assets for Advisor Class shares; (iii) 0.90% of average daily net assets for Premier Class shares; (iv) 1.00% of average daily net assets for Retirement Class shares; and (v) 1.14% of average daily net assets for Retail Class shares of the Fund. These expense reimbursement arrangements will continue through at least December 8, 2017, unless changed with approval of the Board of Trustees.

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 8, 2017, 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:


	Institutional Class		Advisor Class		Premier Class		Retirement Class		Retail Class
1 year	$	74	$	80	$	89	$	99	$	113
3 years	$	230	$	249	$	278	$	309	$	353

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. The Fund has no annual portfolio turnover rate because the Fund is newly operational.

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Principal investment strategies

Under normal circumstances, the Fund invests at least 80% of its assets in small-cap equity securities of foreign issuers. In seeking a favorable long-term total return, the Fund will invest in securities that the Fund’s investment adviser, Teachers Advisors, LLC (“Advisors”), believes have favorable prospects for long-term capital appreciation. A small-cap equity security is a security within the capitalization range of the companies included in the Fund’s benchmark index, the MSCI ACWI ex USA Small Cap Index (the “Index”), at the time of purchase. The Fund may invest in equity securities of small companies across a wide range of sectors, growth rates and valuations. From time to time, Advisors reviews the Fund’s sector and country exposure against the Index to seek to control risk in relation to the Index. The Fund may invest in emerging markets to varying degrees, depending on stock-specific opportunities. The Fund considers investments of foreign issuers to generally include any one or more of the following: (1) companies whose securities are principally traded outside of the United States, (2) companies having their principal business operations outside of the United States, (3) companies organized outside of the United States, and (4) foreign governments and agencies or instrumentalities of foreign governments. The Fund has a policy of maintaining investments of equity securities of foreign issuers in at least three countries other than the United States. For purposes of the 80% investment policy, the term “assets” means net assets, plus the amount of any borrowings for investment purposes.

Advisors uses proprietary quantitative models, or models utilizing econometric and mathematical techniques based on financial and investment theories, to evaluate and score a broad universe of stocks in which the Fund invests. These models typically weigh many different variables, including the valuation of the individual stock versus the market or its peers, future earnings and sustainable growth prospects, and the price and volume trends of the stock. The score is used to form the portfolio, and the following additional inputs may also be considered: weightings of the stock and its corresponding sector in the benchmark, correlations of the stocks in the universe and trading costs. The Fund may purchase foreign equity securities denominated in U.S. dollars or in non-U.S. dollar currencies, and equity securities issued in connection with reorganizations and other special situations. Although Advisors does not anticipate that the Fund will have significant exposure to equity securities issued in connection with reorganizations and other special situations, the Fund is not subject to any preset limit.

The overall goal is to build a portfolio of stocks that generate a favorable long-term total return, while also managing the relative risk of the Fund versus the Index. The Fund’s strategy is based upon Advisors’ understanding of the interplay of market factors and does not assure the Fund will perform as intended. The markets or the prices of individual securities may be affected by factors not taken into account in Advisors’ analysis.

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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:

· Market Risk—The risk that market prices of portfolio investments held by the Fund may fall rapidly or unpredictably due to a variety of factors, including changing economic, political or market conditions. Market risk may affect a single issuer, industry or sector of the economy, or it may affect the market as a whole.

· Issuer Risk (often called Financial Risk)—The risk that an issuer’s earnings prospects and overall financial position will deteriorate, causing a decline in the value of the issuer’s financial instruments over short or extended periods of time.

· Small-Cap Risk—The risk that the stocks of small-capitalization companies often experience greater price volatility than large- or mid-sized companies because small-cap companies are often newer or less established than larger companies and are likely to have more limited resources, products and markets. Securities of small-cap companies are often less liquid than securities of larger companies as a result of there being a smaller market for their securities, which can have an adverse effect on the pricing of these securities and on the ability to sell these securities when Advisors deems it appropriate.

· 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.

· Quantitative Analysis Risk—The risk that stocks selected using quantitative modeling and analysis could perform differently from the market as a whole.

· Foreign Investment Risk—Foreign markets can be more volatile than the U.S. market due to increased risks of adverse issuer, political, regulatory, currency, market or economic developments and can result in greater price volatility and perform differently from financial instruments of U.S. issuers. This risk may be heightened in emerging or developing markets. Foreign investments may also be less liquid and more difficult to value than investments in U.S. issuers.

· Emerging Markets Risk—The risk of foreign investment often increases in countries with emerging markets. For example, these countries may have more unstable governments than developed countries, and their economies may be based on only a few industries. Because their financial markets may be very small, share prices of financial instruments in emerging market countries may be volatile and difficult to determine. Financial instruments of issuers in these countries may be less liquid than those of issuers in more developed countries. In addition, foreign investors such as the Fund are subject to a variety of special restrictions in many emerging market countries.

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· Illiquid Investments Risk—The risk that illiquid investments may be difficult to sell for the value at which they are carried, if at all, or at any price within the desired time frame. Fund investments in securities of small-cap companies are often less liquid than Fund investments in securities of larger companies.

· Special Situation Risk—Stocks of companies involved in acquisitions, consolidations, tender offers or exchanges, takeovers, reorganizations, mergers and other special situations can involve the risk that such situations may not materialize or may develop in unexpected ways. Consequently, those stocks can involve more risk than ordinary securities.

· Currency Risk—The risk that foreign (non-U.S.) currencies may decline in value relative to the U.S. dollar and adversely affect the value of the Fund’s investments in foreign currencies, securities denominated in foreign currencies or derivative instruments that provide exposure to foreign currencies.

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

Past performance

Performance information is not available for the Fund for the most recently completed calendar year because the Fund is newly operational.

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

Portfolio management

Investment Adviser. The Fund’s investment adviser is Teachers Advisors, LLC.

Portfolio Managers. The following persons manage the Fund on a day-to-day basis:



Name:	Antonio Ramos	Steve Rossiello, CFA
Title:	Managing Director	Managing Director
Experience on Fund:	since 2016	since 2016

Purchase and sale of Fund shares

Institutional Class shares are available for purchase directly from the Fund by certain eligible investors (which include employee benefit plans and financial intermediaries). Advisor Class shares are available for purchase through certain financial intermediaries, employee benefit plans and insurance company separate accounts. Premier Class and Retirement Class shares are generally available for purchase through employee benefit plans or other types of savings plans or accounts. Retail Class shares are available for purchase through certain financial intermediaries or by contacting the Fund directly at 800-223-1200 or www.tiaa.org.

· The minimum initial investment is $2 million and the minimum subsequent investment is $1,000 for Institutional Class shares, unless an investor purchases shares by or through financial intermediaries that have entered

TIAA-CREF International Small-Cap Equity Fund ■ Summary Prospectus 5

into an appropriate agreement with the Fund or its affiliates. Employee benefit plans, fee-based managed account programs (“wrap accounts”), state sponsored 529 college savings plans, collective trust funds, investment companies or other pooled investment vehicles, thrifts, bank and trust companies that have entered into agreements to offer Institutional Class shares held in omnibus accounts on the books of the Fund are exempt from initial and subsequent investment minimums.

· There is no minimum initial or subsequent investment for Advisor Class shares. Advisor Class shares are primarily offered through certain financial intermediaries and employer-sponsored employee benefit plans.

· There is no minimum initial or subsequent investment for Premier Class shares. Premier Class shares are primarily offered through certain financial intermediaries and employer-sponsored employee benefit plans.

· There is no minimum initial or subsequent investment for Retirement Class shares. Retirement Class shares are primarily offered through employer-sponsored employee benefit plans.

· The minimum initial investment for Retail Class shares is $2,000 per Fund account for Traditional IRA, Roth IRA and Coverdell accounts and $2,500 for all other account types. Subsequent investments for all account types must be at least $100.

Redeeming or Exchanging Shares. You can redeem (sell) or exchange your shares of the Fund on any day that the New York Stock Exchange (“NYSE”) or its affiliated exchanges NYSE Arca Equities or NYSE MKT are open for trading (each such day a “Business Day”). Exchanges may be made for shares of the same share class of other funds offered by the Trust. If your shares are held through a third party, please contact that entity for applicable redemption or exchange requirements. If your shares are held directly with the Fund, contact the Fund directly in writing or by telephone.

Tax information

The Fund intends to make distributions to shareholders that may be taxed as ordinary income or capital gains. Distributions made to tax-exempt shareholders or shareholders who hold Fund shares in a tax-deferred account are generally not subject to income tax in the current year, but redemptions made from tax-deferred accounts may be subject to income tax.

Payments to broker-dealers and other financial intermediary compensation

If you purchase shares of the Fund through a broker-dealer or other financial intermediary (such as a bank), the Fund and/or its related companies may pay the financial intermediary for providing investor services. The Fund’s related companies may also pay the financial intermediary for the sale of Fund shares and related services. These payments may create a conﬂict of interest by

6 Summary Prospectus ■ TIAA-CREF International Small-Cap Equity Fund

influencing the broker-dealer or other financial intermediary and your salesperson to recommend the Fund over another investment. Ask your salesperson or visit your financial intermediary’s website for more information.

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