In today's educational realm principals face high demands to increase student achievement and the mandates of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) has intensified this challenging job with its requirements to adequate yearly progress (AYP). Such mandates have caused many elementary school principals to consider distributed leadership as a catalyst to help improve student achievement. This study investigated four elementary schools in South Carolina who employed the strategy of leadership being distributed. The data was collected from the Palmetto Academic Challenge Test (PACT) for 289 students who were enrolled amongst four schools based on the reading and math domains of the PACT and compared for the 2007-2009 school years. Data was also collected from the Distributed Leadership Readiness Scale (DLRS) measuring the effectiveness of how four elementary school principals in South Carolina implemented the distributed leadership practice as perceived by 187 educators (assistant principals and teachers). Three hypotheses were tested. The mean scores were utilized to display a comparison of data collected from the 2007-2008 school year when leadership was not distributed and the 2008-2009 school year when the model was implemented. This model was found to be useful in improving student achievement as evident in the 2008-2009 PACT score results. The Pearson Correlation analyses, "t" test and ANOVA were conducted to reveal the gains for both reading and math. The results on the Palmetto Academic Challenge Test revealed that during the 2008-2009 school year when the distributed leadership model was implemented, students showed growth in the areas of reading and math. Significant growth was found in reading. Results of DLRS from respondents indicated distributed leadership is an effective strategy. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]