The National Science Education Standards suggest that students work as real scientists in the classroom (NRC 1996; 2000). To accomplish this task, the authors developed community-based inquiry lessons (CBILs) that provide students with the opportunity to solve problems as a class, based on the concept of whole-class inquiry (WCI) presented by Gallagher-Bolos and Smithenry (2004; 2008; 2009). This article discusses the basic premises of CBIL and presents practical guidelines for teachers who want to learn more about building authentic inquiry-based classrooms. (Contains 4 figures and 1 online resource.)