In this article, the author discusses that emerging devices, tools, media and virtual environments offer opportunities for creating new types of learning communities for students and teachers. Examples of learning communities include a national mix of kids working together to create an online encyclopedia about Harry Potter's fictional world, or groups of mentor and novice teachers in Milwaukee sharing ideas about effective instruction. Both opportunities and challenges arise in applying a model of learning communities to the instruction of students and to the preparation, induction and professional development of teachers. Before discussing these issues, this article delineates the author's perspective on educational improvement, necessary for understanding the assumptions underlying this two-part article, which concludes in the October 2004 issue of "T.H.E. Journal."