This article details the work of Vonda Ward--a middle-school teacher turned librarian. When Vonda Ward was a middle-school teacher, she could not get her students to share her excitement about history because they could not read its stories. That is when she realized how much subject mastery depended on the basics. Broward County Library's leaders were also interested in teaching basic literacy. Ward, who grew up in a community that had no libraries, had a gut-level understanding of people's potential to improve their lives. She jumped at the chance to become the library's Learning Games Coordinator. Ward developed basic skills with learning games based on children's books and presented them in after-school programs. At the same time, she began to teach adult students to read and write and to train volunteer tutors as well. Library administrators recognized Ward's energy, organizational skills, and ability to inspire others and promoted her to coordinator of the Each One Teach One adult literacy program.