The term "sheltered instruction" (SI) has become a widely used metaphor representing a common pedagogical intervention intended to help English language learners simultaneously gain English proficiency and academic content knowledge. While existing research places considerable emphasis on observable pedagogical techniques that characterize SI, there has been little discussion of the sheltering metaphor itself or the variety of ways in which this term has been used by both researchers and teachers. In this article, I draw on lesson observations and interviews to consider how the metaphor of sheltering operates in three high school sheltered history classrooms. While all three examples demonstrate basic characteristics of SI, the observed instruction in each class created markedly different learning contexts and positioned the students in distinct ways. I characterize these diverse enactments of sheltered instruction as 1) sheltering as protection, 2) sheltering as nurturing, and 3) sheltering as separation. These lessons highlight the complex and sometimes competing aims of sheltered instruction and point to the potential of the sheltering metaphor as a rich site for professional development and future inquiry.