The past 15 years have seen a wealth of civic education initiatives. States have passed supportive laws, a blue-ribbon commission has identified best practices, and new programs are blossoming. Some emphasize knowing, and others emphasize doing; some are geared to academic learning about government and politics, while others emphasize participation in civic action. Both are needed because they add up to a valued hybrid: knowledgeable action or "enlightened political engagement." The authors conducted course-development research to design one such hybrid. The aim is to invigorate the high school government course, which remains a mainstay of civic education in the United States. The objective is to deepen students' knowledge of U.S. government and politics while engaging them in it through lively simulations. The authors' work includes development of an authentic assessment of deep political learning, the "Complex Scenario Test (CST)." It is a classroom-based performance assessment that can be used as a summative test at the end of the course or used formatively along the way, or both. In this article, the authors share the assessment and invite readers to adapt it to their own uses.