The purpose of this paper is to describe how two women professors began and sustained a multi-year, collaborative research project. There has been little investigation into collaborative research in the academy, particularly about women working together. This paper is grounded in research collaboration over time and supported by related literature regarding women in academia and collaboration. First, we tell personal stories that describe how our values and contexts of gender, place, family, and age influenced how we navigate academia. Then, we describe our collaboration process and negotiation of a theoretical framework that led to an on-going social justice research agenda. Finally, the paper describes six lessons learned and future directions and ideas for our continued collaborative research. [Paper accepted for presentation at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) (New York, NY, 2008).]