The Dulce Independent School District is located on the Jicarilla Apache Native reservation, in northern New Mexico.

Dulce is located in Northern New Mexico, near the Colorado border. Headquartered in Dulce, on U.S. Highway 64, it is just 26 miles west of Chama and 78 miles east of Farmington. The elevation on the Jicarilla Apache reservation ranges from 6,000 to 9,000 feet wuth the landscape varying from rugged pine covered mesas and pinion juniper woodlands to low age-brush flats, several lakes and the Navajo River.

The traditional homeland of the Jicarilla apache covers northeastern New Mexico, South-eastern Colorado and the plains of western Texas and Oklahoma.

The geography is comprised of two fundamental Environemtns which help shape the two bands, the Llaneros(red) or plains people and the Oileros(white) or mountain valley people. The name Jicarilla comes from a Spanish word meaning "little basket maker".

The traditional lifestyle of hunting and gathering of the Jicarilla has thrived throughout their settlement in the southwest, but they have also adopted some cultural traits of their aboriginal neighbors from the Plains and Upper Rio Grande.