Students' experiences of daily classroom activities and the larger school context were studied at the Robert W. Coleman Elementary School, Baltimore (Maryland). Coleman is an inner-city school serving about 500 African American children in prekindergarten through grade 5. The school is organized into three campuses--primary, "Coleman" for grades 2 and 3, and "Marshall Mitchell" for grades 4 and 5. Teachers of each campus serve as a team, and students above the primary level move from teacher to teacher throughout the day. With a few exceptions, classes are single- gender, and Coleman is the first year-round school in Maryland, with 9- week sessions followed by 3-week intersessions of mini-courses. Undergirding practices at Coleman is the Urban Learner Framework of Research for Better Schools, Inc., a model that emphasizes the strengths of urban learners and the necessity for culturally sensitive instruction that capitalizes on the resilience of urban students. The ethnographic study of Coleman relied on observations of 5 teachers and interviews with 70 students to create a picture of the school's culture of academic success through the eyes of its students. An appendix contains the student interview questions. (Contains 26 references.) (SLD)