The Accelerated Schools Project has the overall purpose of creating the best schools for all children so that every child has the opportunity to become a creative, critical, and productive member of society. The project represents a philosophy and a process for transforming conventional schools into accelerated ones where powerful learning experiences are daily occurrences for all members of the school community. The three central principles of accelerated schools are: unity of purpose through active collaboration of parents, teachers, students, staff, and community; empowerment through responsibility; and building on strengths. The Accelerated Schools Project staff develops, refines, and transmits the model to school practitioners who actually use the model to transform school communities. The concept of "big wheels" and "little wheels" interacting has helped participants in the Accelerated Schools Project make sense of the changes occurring in accelerating school sites. The "big wheels" are the formal, explicit components of the state-of-the-art accelerated schools model that are bought into by all participants. For school communities, involve engaging collaboratively in bringing the model to life. The "little wheels", on the other hand, are the spin-offs of the public and collaborative big wheel experiences; they are the informal innovations that individuals and small groups initiate as a result of participating in big wheel activities. Two case studies from an inner-city middle school demonstrate the interactions of the big and little wheels in the areas of family involvement and instruction. These case studies illustrate that all components of the accelerated schools model have the potential to spin off little wheels and that design and implementation are necessarily integrated. (SLD)