A team of faculty and students from a principal preparation program sought to discover how administrators and teachers in two culturally diverse middle schools were implementing the concept of learning community. The purposes of the study was to: (1) Explore how administrators and teachers defined learning communities; (2) Determine how the two schools' definitions compared with the middle school concept; and (3) Identify strategies to assist stakeholders in creating a common vision for their learning communities. The author presents three complimentary educational reform initiatives that are currently influencing middle school structure and practice, and these are: (1) The "Turning Points" middle school concept; (2) Small learning communities; and (3) Professional learning communities. She also discusses issues with integrating learning communities into the middle school concept. (Contains 1 note and 1 figure.)