A university-public school partnership analysis reveals how the cultural context associated with existing institutions can both facilitate and impede the emergence of a new culture that those institutions attempt to create and often involves entire cultural reforms and organizational conversion. Brigham Young University and five surrounding school districts formed a partnership with the following objectives: (1) improve teacher and school administrator preparation programs; (2) use research findings in teaching and learning in the schools; (3) attract better qualified persons to the teaching profession; and (4) encourage collaborative inquiry by school and university personnel. Benevolent authoritarianism gave the formal partnership a structure; the informal cooperative networks have provided the spirit of collaboration. Two examples illustrate how conflicts between the host culture (authoritarianism and networks) and the ideals of the new culture could prevent progress if the organizational conversion process does not continue. (MLF)