The purpose of this paper is to describe how one university collaborated with local P-12 partners to create an Ed.D. program in Educational Leadership. This program's goal is to professionally develop aspiring district-level school leadership in concert with local P-12 partnership school districts. As a direct result of those partnerships, the program provides doctoral candidates with opportunities to implement transformative leadership initiatives, meaning those that substantially challenge the status quo, in local participating P-12 school districts as a critical component of their dissertation research. Examples of previous transformative initiatives include; ungraded classrooms, collaborative teacher-led schools, self-directed teacher evaluation programs, experiential and inquiry-based instruction, and student-led curriculum development. This article describes how the program was developed and the essential features incorporated into its design, including the teaching fellows, the Transformative Leadership Project, the coursework and dissertation, and the change initiatives led by doctoral students. The initial cohort for this program began in the fall semester 2017 with 22 doctoral students.