Historically, teachers have primarily worked alone in their classrooms, have served as deliverers of standardized and textual materials, and have been managed. Now, however, they are expected to work in teams, create active-learning curricula, and manage themselves. This paper examines a self-initiated team of K-6 grade teachers working in a middle-class suburban public school in southern California. With their principal's support, they formed an educational program housed within the elementary school. In the Global Education Program (GEP) the teachers incorporated onsite curriculum development and collaboration. In addition to meeting regularly as a team to discuss their individual classroom work, the teachers used the meetings to plan curriculum units together. They then implemented the curriculum in their classrooms, bringing together classes from all grades. Data were obtained from audio- and video-taped observations of meetings and teacher interviews. The group balanced group cohesion with individual autonomy in their curriculum planning by using speech patterns that promoted shared decision making; by using physical artifacts to hold the shape of a complex teaching unit; by organizing their work in terms of relatively few fixed yet open-ended ground rules; and by creating joint finished products to culminate each curriculum unit. One table is included. (Contains eight references.) (LMI)