Significance Successful completion of daily activities relies on the ability to select the relevant features of the environment to pay attention to and remember. Disruptions of these processes can lead to disorders, such as attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and age-related memory loss. To devise therapeutic strategies, we must understand the neural circuits underlying normal cognition. One important pathway is the signaling of dopamine, a reinforcement-related neurotransmitter, in the hippocampus, a spatial learning and memory center. Surprisingly, the brain region supplying dopamine to the dorsal hippocampus is unclear. This study provides direct evidence that the noradrenergic locus coeruleus coreleases dopamine in the dorsal hippocampus and provides insight into dopamine function in selective attention and spatial learning and memory.