National Teaching Fellows (NTFs) in the UK are celebrated individuals who have made a successful claim for teaching excellence to the Higher Education Academy. This paper reports the results of an empirical study of NTFs with expertise in online learning, which measured their pedagogical beliefs and online teaching practices, using a "teaching conceptions" model. Given the growth of online teaching within higher education, this paper seeks to establish whether excellent teachers "practise what they preach" in online environments and can support other less able colleagues in developing their online practices.