One of the most common misunderstandings about the composition of the teaching profession, and hence, educational administration, is that it is merely a professional choice: someone chooses to be a teacher rather than a business person, a lawyer, a food service worker, a nurse, a truck driver. In reality, many decisions are made for young people long before they become aware that they even have a choice. The research completed for the book, "The Color of Teaching" (Gordon, 2000a), requires into the impediments students encounter along the way that might dissuade them from becoming a teacher. In discussions with more than 200 teachers of color in urban school districts across America, the author came to understand, from their perspective, how and why teachers are facing a serious crisis in the diversification of their teaching force and some possible ways to address the problem. The research presented here demonstrates that the images of teachers and the teaching profession as developed and sustained within various American cultural and economic communities are as much a contribution to any shortage of teachers of color as are the structural impediments so frequently cited.