Results for ab initio no-core shell model calculations in a symmetry-adapted SU(3)-based coupling scheme demonstrate that collective modes in light nuclei emerge from first principles. The low-lying states of 6 Li, 8 Be, and 6 He are shown to exhibit orderly patterns that favor spatial configurations with strong quadrupole deformation and complementary low intrinsic spin values, a picture that is consistent with the nuclear symplectic model. The results also suggest a pragmatic path forward to accommodate deformation-driven collective features in ab initio analyses when they dominate the nuclear landscape.Introduction. -Major progress in the development of realistic inter-nucleon interactions along with the utilization of massively parallel computing resources [1][2][3] have placed ab initio approaches [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14] at the frontier of nuclear structure explorations. The ultimate goal of ab initio studies is to establish a link between underlying principles of quantum chromodynamics (quark/gluon considerations) and observed properties of atomic nuclei, including their structure and related reactions. The predictive potential that ab initio models hold [15,16] makes them suitable for targeting short-lived nuclei that are inaccessible by experiment but essential to modeling, for example, of the dynamics of X-ray bursts and the path of nucleosynthesis (see, e.g., [17,18]).