There is a growing interest among organizations in identifying and nurturing Communities of Practice. Delineating what is and what is not a Community of Practice (CoP) is not a clear-cut task. One specific area of difficulty is distinguishing between a team and a CoP. Because there are strong similarities between the two, it is often helpful to outline the areas where teams and CoPs differ. Another area of difficulty with regard to a CoP is determining, if one does indeed exist, how best to nurture its existence in an effort to provide fertile soil for its development. This paper looks at these three areas: (1) defining a CoP; (2) distinguishing between a CoP and a team; and (3) identifying ways to nurture a CoP. The framework for addressing these questions is from the perspective of a posthoc review of two case studies: the ISUnion Web-design team and the actual virtual community developed by the Web-design team. The ISUnion is an interactive Web site designed and created by graduate students of the Instructional Systems (IS) Program at an academic institution in the Southeastern United States. The purpose of the Web-design team is to develop an electronic, Web-based infrastructure to support the development of a virtual community of dialog. (Contains 7 references.) (AEF)