This dissertation contains three main results. First, a generalization of Ionescu's theorem is proven. Ionescu's theorem describes an unexpected connection between graph C*-algebras and fractal geometry. In this work, this theorem is extended from ordinary directed graphs to higher-rank graphs. Second, a characterization is given of the Cuntz-Pimsner algebra associated to a tensor product of C*-correspondences. This is a generalization of a result by Kumjian about graphs algebras. This second result is applied to several important special cases of Cuntz-Pimsner algebras including topological graph algebras, crossed products by the integers and crossed products by completely positive maps. The result has meaningful interpretations in each context. The third result is an extension of the second result from an ordinary tensor product to a special case of Woronowicz's twisted tensor product. This result simultaneously characterizes Cuntz-Pimsner algebras of ordinary and graded tensor products and Cuntz-Pimsner algebras of crossed products by actions and coactions of discrete groups, the latter partially recovering earlier results of Hao and Ng and of Kaliszewski, Quigg and Robertson.

In this thesis, I investigate the C*-algebras and related constructions that arise from combinatorial structures such as directed graphs and their generalizations. I give a complete characterization of the C*-correspondences associated to directed graphs as well as results about obstructions to a similar characterization of these objects for generalizations of directed graphs. Viewing the higher-dimensional analogues of directed graphs through the lens of product systems, I give a rigorous proof that topological k-graphs are essentially product systems over N^k of topological graphs. I introduce a "compactly aligned" condition for such product systems of graphs and show that this coincides with the similarly-named conditions for topological k-graphs and for the associated product systems over N^k of C*-correspondences. Finally I consider the constructions arising from topological dynamical systems consisting of a locally compact Hausdorff space and k commuting local homeomorphisms. I show that in this case, the associated topological k-graph correspondence is isomorphic to the product system over N^k of C*-correspondences arising from a related Exel-Larsen system. Moreover, I show that the topological k-graph C*-algebra has a crossed product structure in the sense of Larsen.