The negotiation, development, testing, and publishing of a specialized text for instructing Chinese geologists and petroleum engineers in English as a second language are chronicled. Aspects of the process discussed include the initial contact and oral agreement with the corporate representative who had requested the training materials, scheduling the text preparation, deciding on an approach, accommodating the language teacher's lack of familiarity with the technical content, selecting material on which to base the text, writing appropriate and workable exercises, coordinating efforts among three writers, field testing the materials, publishing and distribution considerations, and copyright. (MSE)