Educators, Ferlazzo claims, often perceive English language learners through a lens of deficits. We would serve these learners better, especially as readers, if we viewed them through a lens focused on assets. The author, who was a community organizer for 19 years before becoming an ESL teacher, relates the process of community organizing--helping people recognize their strengths and learn new skills to improve their lives--to helping English language learners find their strengths as readers. He describes how he adapts a five-step "organizing cycle" that good community organizers use to his literacy teaching with high school-level English language learners. Ferlazzo gives classroom examples and describes specific inductive teaching strategies and techniques he uses with his mostly new-immigrant student population to outline these five steps: Build strong relationships with students; access prior knowledge through stories; help students learn by doing; identify and mentor students' leadership potential; and promote the habit of reflection. (Contains 1 figure.)