In this paper, Luther College and the Decorah (Iowa) Public Schools suggest that a clinical model for field experience offers a better approach to the problem of teacher empowerment. The model, which shifts instructional methods and student teaching to a public school that consciously identifies itself as a teacher training institution, enhances both the inservice and preservice teacher's sense of empowerment in two ways. First, it directly empowers exceptional secondary or elementary teachers by paying them to translate their experience with and knowledge of classroom teaching into curriculum content for the undergraduate teacher candidate. Second, it provides novice teachers with role models from the ranks of secondary and elementary teachers. Luther College's clinical semester, designed to increase the relevance of methods and clinical experience, results in enhancement of the participating teachers' self-esteem while presenting novices with a role model of an active professional teacher. The paper describes the successful secondary program, initiated in 1987, and discusses the proposed elementary program. It examines teacher empowerment issues resulting from the program, suggesting that the clinical aspect effectively enhances both the undergraduates' and clinical teachers' sense of empowerment. (SM)