Community organizing for school reform offers an urgently needed alternative to traditional approaches to school change. Many current reforms fail to thrive due to lack of trust, understanding, or cultural relevance to the community being targeted. The high turnover of reformers (superintendents, principals, or outside organizations) in high-need schools and districts is another major cause of failure. Finally, reforms also fail because they do not address extreme inequities in resources and empowerment between poor and more privileged communities. Community organizing, in contrast, has the potential to situate education issues within larger economic and social systems, directly address issues of power, and build democratic capacity to sustain meaningful education reforms. This article describes how community organizing for education reform works. This article also presents several strategies that distinguish community organizing for school reform from conventional strategies.