The National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented at the University of Virginia conducted a 4-year qualitative case study in three very different school sites to explore how teachers contribute to the academic success of high potential, low economic students of color. Typically, the ethnicity, race, and/or economic status of these students would predict that they would not be high achievers in school. Yet in some classrooms, the pattern of underachievement is reversed and the students do succeed. The three study sites were (a) a high school in a university town where the majority of students were Caucasian and affluent and a relative small minority of the students were African American and low economic, (b) a pre-kindergarten through eighth grade school in which virtually all of the students were African American and of low economic status and located in a urban neighborhood of a heavily populated metropolitan area, and (c) a pre-kindergarten through sixth grade elementary school in which about half of the students were Hispanic, about a third African American, and the remaining were Caucasian students and second language learners of Asian or African descent. In all of the settings, researchers worked for approximately 2 years, using observation, interview, and document analysis to answer the research question. Among factors influencing student success in the three schools were: (a) the nature of the school setting and its vision for low economic students of color, (b) the degree to which educators understood the academic and affective needs of low economic students of color, (c) the nature of curriculum, instruction, and assessment in the classrooms, and (d) attitudes about the role of the teacher in supporting the success of low economic students of color. Data suggest that to support the academic success of high potential students of color (a) teachers and schools do not have to be excellent in all factors to make a very positive difference in the achievement, (b) the definition of success established by a school or teacher will shape student opportunity for long-term academic success, (c) to be more effective in developing the capacity of high potential low economic students of color, schools will have to be more effective in developing the capacity of virtually all students of color, (d) educators who are most effective in supporting the academic success of students of color support the students in learning to live comfortably in two worlds. (Contains 1 figure.)