In this qualitative study the authors investigated how prospective teachers' professional goals were understood by participants. Interviews of 25 prospective teachers from the United States were collected as part of a larger mixed-methods study. Qualitative data from interviews (the focus of this study) examined the profiles of the three identified clusters/typologies of teacher candidates. Most precisely, study findings describe prospective teachers' goal orientations as related to their "teaching motivations," their "teaching beliefs," "the context that shaped their teaching goals" and their "strategies to fulfill their professional goal" of becoming teachers. Contributions from this study can help teacher educators, policy makers and teacher education programs develop guidelines for teacher recruitment and retention.