In this article, we examine collaboration as a situated practice that defies a prescriptive definition mainly located in the interpersonal relations of professionals. We argue that collaboration does not merely depend upon good will or professionalism, rather interacts complexly with racial expectations that have been cultivated in institutions where racism is manifested in subtle ways. We use Critical Race Theory (Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995) to examine how we as 2 different pairs of teacher educators in innovative programs in different sites faced racial tensions through our co-teaching experiences. Each racially diverse pair consisted of a more senior faculty member and an international teaching assistant. Hence we discuss the tensions that are inevitable as we professionals collaborate across relations of power and race. We argue for a more complex understanding of what it means to collaborate from these different social positions.