In the context of a professional-development reform movement in Quebec, the Ministry of Education asked universities to participate in the training of school principals so that they could implement a culture of continuous learning in their own schools. The university researchers used a bottom-up approach to initiate collaborative inquiry with 37 principals interested in learning about action research. The researchers modeled collaborative inquiry with the principals by reflecting on their own practice so that the principals could implement the practice with their own staffs and become learning partners. The paper proposes a definition of bottom-up collaborative inquiry and describes a 2-year study within which principals developed support groups with the help of the university researchers. The principals learned and experimented with new ways to relate with their staff in the context of school renewal. Additionally, the principals' leadership practices changed through several action-reflection cycles within an action-research context. (Contains 24 references.) One figure is included. (LMI)