The development of expertise is seen as a crucial element in higher education, but the nature of expertise has been clouded by assumptions of the centrality of intuition and tacit knowledge. In this paper the authors contend that much knowledge that has been described as tacit can be surfaced for examination through the application of concept mapping techniques. This approach allows experts to articulate their practice in a way that is transparent, making it available for scrutiny by students. Expertise is described here as connecting the chains of practice that denote competence with the underlying networks of understanding that are required to support academic development. This occurs across the academic disciplines with various degrees of subtlety. It is described in the context of clinical teaching as it is in this context that the separation of chains of practice from underlying networks of understanding is most pronounced. (Contains 4 figures.)