In this article, the author features the Gesu School, a small, inner-city, K-8 Catholic school in Philadelphia. She describes how it has transformed itself since 1993 from a school barely eking out an existence to one with a $5 million--and growing--endowment fund and a powerful, ecumenical board of business executives and other lay people. The Gesu School, say some experts, is an example of an emerging national trend. As more Catholic schools are closing or consolidating because of declining enrollment and parish membership, and weak financial support, more schools--especially those in urban areas--are becoming financially independent, headed by business and marketing-savvy lay boards, with a spiritual commitment to helping the needy. In 1993, the Gesu School taught 200 students on the second floor of a badly deteriorated building in a poor, drug-ridden neighborhood. It had almost no operating funds. It was a school with an uncertain future. Today, the school is bursting at the seams with 433 neighborhood students, many of whom go on to academically competitive high schools. It boasts crackerjack leadership, development, and teaching staffs. Gesu has a 57-member trustee board that includes some of the best business and philanthropic minds in greater Philadelphia. It was those backers, along with an administration anchored by a Jesuit priest and an Immaculate Heart of Mary nun, who shored up the Gesu School.