Questions addressed in this paper include: what it means to be a successful teacher in poor, urban, ghetto areas; whether schools of education can prepare white, middle-class young men and women to be successful teachers in such areas; and if it is possible to prepare them, how to do it. Two case examples illustrate some unique challenges found in urban schools, and theory is cited from works by Gloria Ladson-Billings, Martin Haberman, and Beverly Cross. It is concluded that successful teachers on any level and with any group of students help students expand their vision of what is possible in their lives and help them to achieve it; successful teachers teach people, not simply technical proficiency or knowledge about subjects. It is further suggested that Schools of Education rarely place middle class, white preservice teachers in urban settings, thus they are unprepared for teaching in these environments. Even when teacher education programs claim to prepare preservice teachers to work in ethnically, racially, and culturally diverse settings, the programs tend to be descriptive rather than critical, presenting generalizations that reinforce rather than challenge existing stereotypes. It is recommended that teacher educators be willing to make a classroom of preservice teachers feel uncomfortable about their beliefs about race, class, and injustice if society is going to make it possible for a few of them to rethink their cultural and ideological heritage, so that they can become successful teachers of African American and other urban students. (Contains 10 references.) (NAV)