This author recently spent a year studying best practices in serving students with learning and other disabilities, and, surprisingly, the experience altered his thinking in significant ways. He came to this study not as a specialist in disabilities but as an academic administrator with years of faculty experience, and that perspective helped him learn how faculty can play a key role in tapping the intellectual potential of students with disabilities. Having been a provost at two colleges, overseeing the offices that assisted students with disabilities, he understood the legal mandates for accommodating those students and the moral imperative to facilitate the success of all the students that were admitted. Those perspectives did not change, but he came to understand that working innovatively to serve students with disabilities contributes to the powerful social goal of unlocking the often stifled intelligence and creativity of students who learn differently and face significant obstacles in traditional educational settings. Ames also learned that the pedagogical challenges posed by students who learn differently have the potential to stimulate innovation in teaching in ways that can help all students learn.