The state of Louisiana has commissioned several pilot projects to design, implement, and evaluate a teacher leader curriculum leading to eligibility for the new teacher leader certificate. The purpose of this paper is to describe one of these pilots, the St. Charles Teacher Leader Institute (TLI), which was implemented as a partnership between the St. Charles Parish public schools, Louisiana, and the University of New Orleans. The first part of the paper describes the TLIs design and implementation structure. The second part summarizes an outside evaluation of the program, and the third identifies some lessons learned in the design and implementation of the pilot project. The TLI included the equivalent of nine credit hours of graduate course work and spanned parts of two academic semesters. It integrated the study of school leadership with an array of field-based problem solving and school improvement activities. The TLI used an electronic, Web-based instructional support system. Each student designed, enacted, and evaluated a project that supported the schools current improvement plan, and they then presented and defended their proposal, budget, and evaluation plan. The external evaluation, which drew on focus groups of participants, interviews with professors, and other sources of data, found that the program increased the pool of potential principals. The evaluation identified some reasons for staying in the program and other reasons for leaving it. In spite of complaints about the amount of time required to complete the assignments and the ambiguity students experienced, they felt successful and were positive about the substance of the program. A primary lesson learned from the program is the importance of partnership. Also identified as important was the outside funding provided by the BellSouth Foundation, which helped attract and retain students. An appendix summarizes topics, activities, and performances. (Contains 18 references.) (SLD)