Research exploring the process of becoming a teacher educator always reveals the difficult balancing act that developing an identity as a teacher educator involves and the articles in this issue do just that. The Rice and McNeil studies of teacher educator identity in this issue are very revealing; they were conducted from the perspective of positioning theory, with its potential to capture and examine the difficulties and vulnerabilities in developing and maintaining this balance. Positioning theory allows these authors to look simultaneously at the role of speech, behavior, events, and action in negotiating balance and it also allows for consideration of institutional, collective, and individual private action in the construction of teacher educator identity. These studies demonstrate how using positioning theory as a theoretical frame necessarily results in an examination of the obligations, duties and responsibilities of those enacting these identities as well as an examination of their ethical and moral sensibilities. The breadth of insight available is readily apparent in these two explorations of teacher educator identity that call forth positioning theory explanations for doing such work.