I'm trying to write a class which contains several std::vectors as data members, and provides a subset of vector's interface to access them: class Mesh { public: private: std::vector<Vector3> positions; std::vector<Vector3> normals; // Several other members along the same lines }; The main thing you can do with a mesh is add positions, normals and other stuff to it. In order to allow an STL-like way of accessing a Mesh (add from arrays, other containers, etc.), I'm toying with the idea of adding methods like this: public: template<class InIter> void AddNormals(InIter first, InIter last); Problem is, from what I understand of templates, these methods will have to be defined in the header file (seems to make sense; without a concrete iterator type, the compiler doesn't know how to generate object code for the obvious implementation of this method). Is this actually a problem? My gut reaction is not to go around sticking huge chunks of code in header files, but my C++ is a little rusty with not much STL experience outside toy examples, and I'm not sure what "acceptable" C++ coding practice is on this. Is there a better way to expose this functionality while retaining an STL-like generic programming flavour? One way would be something like this: (end list) class RestrictedVector<T> { public: RestrictedVector(std::vector<T> wrapped) : wrapped(wrapped) {} template <class InIter> void Add(InIter first, InIter last) { std::copy(first, last, std::back_insert_iterator(wrapped)); } private: std::vector<T> wrapped; }; and then expose instances of these on Mesh instead, but that's starting to reek a little of overengineering :P Any advice is greatly appreciated!