What are the elements of professional learning that lead to an increase of the likelihood of new learning and understandings being embedded into teacher practices? This article details some of the strategies the author has successfully employed to establish a context whereby an innovation would be sustained past the time of the Ministry Gifted and Talented Education contract. A "wedge model" was adopted so that over time, the balance of responsibility and power shifted from her as facilitator, to the staff through a range of collaborative processes.