For more than a year, the debate, press coverage, and buzz in Washington, D.C., have swirled over whether someone so different--and so relatively inexperienced--can deliver sweeping change. And presidential hopeful Barack Obama hasn't been the only one receiving that kind of unrelenting scrutiny. This article describes Michelle Rhee who became chancellor of the District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) in June 2007, just after the city's newly elected mayor, Adrian Fenty, had taken control of the troubled district. She fast became a lightning rod with her launching of a massive reform of a system that burned through six of her predecessors in 10 years. She has come under fire in part for firing principals without warning and closing schools without seeking much community input. Rhee, a 37-year-old Korean-American whose parents immigrated from South Korea, arrived after a decade at the helm of the New Teacher Project, a New York-based organization that has recruited teachers--many of them professionals willing to change careers--for 200 mostly urban school systems across the country.