NCLB and Reading First are negotiated in implementing beginning reading instruction. The article describes and analyzes how two critical conditions for creating opportunity--access to qualified teachers and rigorous academic curriculum--are met by examining the enactment and adaptation of a prescriptive core reading program disproportionately targeted at "low-performing" schools. Although prescriptive curricula attempt to ensure achievement, classroom implementation is mediated by teachers exercising professional prerogative. The quality of these mediations is determined by a teacher's expertise in negotiating the tensions between fidelity of implementation and adaptation to local context. Through extensive classroom observations and teacher interviews, this case study illuminates fundamental issues of teacher quality as they are realized by an experienced teacher.