Former American student briefly holding British record (5)
I believe the answer is:
album
'record' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'former american student briefly holding british' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
'american' could be 'a' (common abbreviation - e.g. in organisation names) and 'a' is located in the answer.
'student' could be 'l' (as in L-plates for learner drivers) and 'l' is present in the answer.
'british' could be 'b' (abbreviation e.g. in BBC) and 'b' is located in the answer.
The remaining letters 'um' is a valid word which might be clued in a way I don't see.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for album that I've seen before include "It contains multiple musical tracks" , "Music record or photo book" , "Blank book for keeping stamps, photographs etc" , "Book of collections" , "Book for filling in" .)