Directing station roaming in a cloud-managed Wi-Fi network. Management messages are received from a controller that is located remotely from the Wi-Fi communication network by an access point. When an RSSI (received signal strength indication) value between the station and the access point falls below a threshold, the access point (i.e., controller access point) determines which neighboring access point would be a best fit for a hand-off, with limited real-time input form the cloud-based Wi-Fi controller. One of the two or more of the plurality of access points is selected for handing-off the station based on the RSSI values received from the interrogation. Responsive to the selection, a message is sent to the selected access point instructing the one of the at least one of the plurality of access points to respond to messages from the station.