This case study investigated whether student talk and classroom discussion might help students find a voice in the academic community and pave the way for other forms of research and analysis that the academy expects of them. Participants were Bergen Community College (New Jersey) students (N=110) enrolled in a non-credit remedial English class. Emphasis was placed on collaborative conversation, turn-taking, silence, timing, and the absence of a traditional authoritarian teacher. Data were obtained by involving students in researching their own discussions. Like most action research on classroom talk, the study also explores methodology. The major means of data collection in this study consisted of audio tapes of classroom discussion, student surveys after discussion sessions, student notebooks, responses to readings, and essays collected throughout the course. Results suggest that: a series of discreet behaviors cannot be taught that will result in meaningful classroom talk; issues of authority between students and teachers in the classroom and between genders affect how students interact in discussion; in order to learn how to use talk to explore ideas, students need to assume an authority that conflicts with their roles as students and as gendered human beings; action research empowers students; and the act of mutual exploration and research engenders a voice of authority that can be shared. (LL)