Rural school districts across the nation, with their limited resources, face daunting challenges posed by the implementation of the Common Core State Standards. This article presents a recent study of 13 rural school districts in the Central Valley of California and how these districts are responding to those challenges. A total of 352 teachers and 36 administrators responded to the Stages of Concern Questionnaire (SoCQ), which measured the concerns of respondents associated with CCSS implementation. Qualitative responses by administrators to questions relating to concerns and leadership approaches associated with CCSS implementation were also analyzed. Major findings were that teachers were mostly concerned about their own personal efforts of CCSS implementation while administrators were more concerned about collaborative processes involved with implementation. Also teachers in their first years of service generally had greater perceived levels of concern at all levels. Recommendations included continuous data collection and assessment of the implementation with greater efforts at communicating findings and next steps for all stakeholders utilizing a blend of instructional and distributed leadership.