This article presents an interview and gives an account on the achievements of Ben Soria, Superintendent of the Yakima School. Soria relates that the greatest influence on his professional career is his father, who only had a 4th-grade education and taught him that he could be whatever he worked hard to be. Soria's metaphor of choice as the superintendent in Yakima, Washington, is the roadmap. It's an effective visual tool for plotting the commitment it will take to translate a vision for measurable learning gains by every student into reality. On a personal level, the roadmap seems especially apropos for Soria. His experiences, as a corporate entrepreneur, have turned up regularly in his five years as a tenacious yet pragmatic head of the 14,500-student Yakima system in central Washington.