Despite significant investments over the past decade in the expansion and improvement of preschool programs, too many children, particularly poor children, enter kindergarten behind their peers. Because it is critical that voluntary pre-kindergarten (VPK) classrooms offer educational programs that both address the needs and developmental levels of low-income children and ultimately close the academic achievement gap between children from low-income and middle-income homes, the authors sought to discover the impact of VPK instruction on the literacy and language development of one classroom of 4-year-old children. In this article, the authors describe the teachers and the students in the classroom. Then they organize their qualitative findings according to the four categories that emerged in the process of analysis: (1) Learning Environment, (2) Learning Focus, (3) Language Interactions, and (4) Culturally Irrelevant Materials. They conclude with an appeal for culturally relevant instruction within a child's zone of proximal development and for school districts to take into account all dimensions of early childhood literacy development, especially VPK programs with a large population of low-income families. (Contains 2 tables and 3 curriculum cited.)