Eager to pursue dual careers in teaching and performing he was appointed to the faculty of The University of Texas at Austin in his early twenties, followed by professorships at the Eastman School of Music, and the University of Michigan, where he was chairman of the piano department. In September 2000, Anton Nel was appointed as the Priscilla Pond Flawn Regents  Professor of Piano and Chamber music at The University of Texas at Austin - Butler School of Music, where he teaches an international class of students and heads the Division of Keyboard Studies.

 Since his return, he has also been the recipient of two Austin-American Statesman Critics Circle Awards, as well as the University Cooperative Society/College of Fine Arts award for extra-curricular achievement.  In 2001 he was appointed Visiting "Extraordinary" Professor at the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa and continues to teach master classes worldwide. In January 2010 he became the first holder of the new Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long Endowed Chair in Piano at the University of Texas at Austin. Since 2015 he has been presenting an annual series of masterclasses in piano and chamber music at the Manhattan School of Music in New York as Visiting Professor and also teaches regularly at the Glenn Gould School in Toronto.