Following the theory that a community of practice must be comprised of three elements: domain, community, and practice (Wenger, 2001), this case study examines the extent to which a university was successful in establishing a community of learners in their orientation program for online graduate students. Specifically, it explores the objectives of the orientation, identifies critical questions involved in the design decisions that are made, explicitly or implicitly, analyzes the success to which goals are met, and provides recommendations for future planning based on this research.