Differentiated instruction, or designing instruction to meet the needs of a variety of learners, has received much attention in continuing and higher education for several years and the middle school philosophy has centered upon differentiation as fundamental to effective teaching. Vast amounts of human and capital resources have been committed to improving the skills of classroom teachers to differentiate instruction. However, very little research has been completed that investigates how well those trained to differentiate instruction actually implement it in their practice. The purpose of this study is to investigate how superior graduates of a teacher education program that focused on differentiation implemented differentiation in their first year of teaching. The results of the study provide insight into some of the difficulties of moving beyond training to implementation.