A study group from the Quality Teacher Network in Reading (QTN/R) reviewed the achievement gap data between Black and White fourth-grade readers in Minnesota. From the results of the review, the study group developed a professional development series. The investigation helped the study group determine from a professional development standpoint how to provide educators an insight into some of the knowledge, skills and dispositions that they should develop to serve African American learners' literacy development. The article chronicles what leading Black researchers believed could create a reflective, dispositional change in educators in order to help them develop more effective practices that would promote higher academic achievement in African American learners. (Contains 2 figures and 1 footnote.)