This paper examines and compares two groups of urban and suburban minority school district educators in an effort to discover the qualities and conditions that make them effective and potential models for other teachers. One group of four teachers is from an inner-city day care and afterschool center. The program has a history of commitment to building a racially and ethnically diverse community and to interracial social struggle. The second group of four includes participants in a university-based support group for new secondary school teachers. The two groups bring widely different experiences to the teaching profession, represent populations that rarely come in contact with each other in our society, either at work or in their social lives, and, some research suggests, would be expected to have highly divergent world views. Comparison of their voices and visions points to a number of similar perceptions about urban and "minority" group education and suggests that teachers from different racial, ethnic, gender, and class backgrounds can be successful teachers of urban and minority students when specific conditions exist in schools and teachers are nurtured and supported. (Contains 41 references.) (Author/SLD)