This study examined the use of transactional inquiry to help preservice and inservice teachers examine and construct their own beliefs and practices about equity in excellence for all learners. Transactional inquiry encourages teachers to identify and describe events that exemplify their developing understanding and to examine those events with their peers. The study involved three contexts: an undergraduate, campus-based literacy methods course wherein students observed and taught content reading lessons to public school students and wrote reflectively on their experiences; a field-based internship during which student teachers learned to be content reading teachers through apprenticeships with public school mentor teachers and support from university liaisons; and an alternative format session at a national literacy research conference in which participants developed their own definitions and told their own stories around equity in excellence for all. The transactional inquiries for this study revealed that racism, classism, and differential treatment of the differently abled were present within classrooms. More experienced practitioners understood and implemented the equity proficiency differently than less experienced practitioners. They were more learner-centered than teacher-centered and included more detailed ideas about working with diverse learners. (Contains 30 references and 5 figures.) (SM)