This study examined what happened in the first month of the school year when a fourth/fifth grade teacher attempted to establish a learning community in her classroom of culturally and linguistically diverse learners. The researcher conducted two teacher interviews and was a participant observer during the first month of the school year. Data analysis involved examining the teacher's vision of the classroom learning community; class activities designed to help enhance students' awareness of their class as a learning community; the class' work on developing a shared literacy practice (a book club); and power relationships between the teacher and students. Results indicated that the teacher had a clear goal of establishing a learning community. She told the students explicitly and repeatedly that they were a learning community. In developing a shared literacy practice, she created opportunities for students to learn to participate. She encouraged students to think for themselves. When students used passive resistance when faced with challenges in doing the Book Club, the teacher persisted because she believed it would be a better way to engage students in reading, writing, talking, and thinking and would create opportunities for them to interact with each other that might help develop the learning community. She considered discipline to be the foundation for a learning community. (Contains 14 references.) (SM)