The purpose of this study is to understand how teachers negotiate decisions about goals and instruction for language minority students and how these decisions play out in classroom interactions. Much of bilingual education research focuses on program evaluation and implementation and, consequently, overlooks the critical role teachers play in the actual implementation of policies, namely, how the teacher makes decisions, what influences those decisions, and how those decisions are linked to and constructed by the school's bilingual program. Teachers make decisions about student language goals and instruction that shape the actual academic experiences of their students. Research in bilingual education should attend more carefully to the role of the teacher in learning and instruction. The research project discussed here investigates the student language goals and classroom instruction of an urban elementary school bilingual teacher and presents an analysis of the many influences that guided her instruction over 2 academic years, during which the bilingual program at her school underwent restructuring. The theoretical framework of this study draws upon educational policy and research on both teaching and bilingual education. The influence and effects of the Bilingual Education Act of 1968 and Title VII of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 are extensively examined. Some of the weaknesses in the system that the teacher encountered include the following: (1) weak support structures for teacher collaboration; (2) inconsistent student language goals; (3) lack of strategic student placement; and (4) a lack of program articulation in Title VII meetings. (Contains 29 references.) (KFT)