Clue: Owning commercial US college can gratify leader (9)
Answer: ADMITTING
Explanation: Definition: Owning
 AD(short for "advertisement", a commercial/promotional material) + MIT(abbrev. for Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a US college) + TIN(can/a cylindrical container of metal) + **1st letter of**(… leader) "gratify".
Defn: …/acknowledging responsibility for.