Through the process of initiating, implementing, and sustaining a schoolwide professional learning community (PLC), teachers and administrators at the pseudonymous Silver Valley Middle School provide a powerful example of distributed leadership in action. New leadership roles, coordination, and interdependency among staff have led to an increased sense of collective responsibility for improving the learning of each student. By acknowledging and using teachers' knowledge and expertise, and by giving teachers different forms of leadership positions and control of their learning groups, their knowledge and expertise will grow and deepen. Leadership based on expertise that is broadly shared across a number of team members and focused on negotiated goals holds the greatest chance for sustaining schools as learning communities focused on student learning and achievement.