What is the power of the collective, and how is it practically leveraged in the context of community-based educational research? In this article, members of the STA Community Research Partnership, a literacy focused project that has linked diverse racial, ethnic, cultural, and linguistic communities with university researchers for nearly a decade, reflect on these questions. The multiple authors draw upon their identities, experiences, and perspectives as doctoral students, literacy professors, and community based leaders to mine the complexities of participating in an intergenerational collaborative dedicated to the exploration of issues related to educational equity and access. Anchored by critical literacy perspectives and democratic approaches to knowledge production, they ultimately argue that it is within the tensions and foreclosures of holding space for a plurality of perspectives that it is possible to locate the richest advantages--and, indeed, the power--of the collective in educational research and praxis.