This article examines the federal role in adolescent literacy from its roots in Lyndon B. Johnson's administration with the Economic Opportunity Act (1964) through the Reading for Understanding grants of 2010. The authors consider the extent to which the recent attention to and changes in the federal approach to adolescent literacy can be explained through the policy regime framework. Specifically, the study traces shifts in the policy paradigm around adolescent literacy and asks whether key actors and issue specialists that have routinely been part of the reading education policy regime at the federal level have changed over time. (Contains 2 tables and 1 note.)