This essay makes the argument that principal preparation programs and school districts can and should form partnerships to more fully prepare the leaders' schools to meet the challenges of school leadership. It uses the outcomes from a three-year pilot study in which a university and a rural school district partnered to provide induction services as one of the contexts within which to discuss the benefits and problems of potential partnerships. It also used the experiences of university faculty involvement in a large urban school district as a context for the discussion of induction partnerships. The authors suggest that university faculty members, school leader preparation programs, and school districts can all benefit from a partnership to induct new school leaders.