Hi Sonya

I think the problem may not be a permissions one it might be the context the role is assigned to ie system, frontpage, category ,course see http://help.totaralms.com/site_admin/assigning_system_roles.htm for more details

To  apply a role to the frontpage select  Site Administration > Front Page > Front Page roles

You could also do this at a category level if you only wanted the role to create courses in a selected category. For example in the demo.totaralms.com site the trainer (course creator) role has been assigned to the Miscellaneous category meaning that new courses can only be created in the Misc course category.

If you can avoid having two roles that would help to simplify things. Look at the permissions of the two roles and try and create a role that combines both sets of permissions. Use the duplicate role and work on the duplicated role so you can fall back on the original role in case this doesn't work as wanted.

Hopefully this helps - if not then I might need to get some more details from you on the roles.

Craig