When the author was a little girl, her father told her the story of how he once saw the great Harry Houdini escape from a straight jacket. In the early 1900s, Houdini fascinated thousands of people by performing feats of life-threatening daring and agility. Houdini was a professional in the traditional sense: he acted alone, kept his trade secrets to himself, and instilled respect in his audience. As a teacher educator, the author now looks upon Harry Houdini's magic act as a metaphor for her own work. For the past four years, she has served as a researcher, teacher educator, and mentor in a Professional Development School (PDS) and she has come to know the anticipation of the audience (applause!) the jeers of some bystanders (boo!) and the need to rethink what she is doing (duh)! In this article, the author reflects on what she believes are some of the key issues concerning research in the PDS magic show from the standpoint of the person in the straight jacket. She first describes the status of inquiry and research in PDS and how it relates to the expectations of the National PDS Standards set forth by the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE). This is followed by a detailed description of the case of a PDS that conducted an inquiry project as part of its participation in the NCATE PDS Standards Field Test Project (1998-2001). The case study provides an illustration of the benefits as well as shortcomings of doing PDS research, and she includes some lessons learned while she served as the research liaison for NCATE. Finally, the author discusses the lessons learned from the case study as they relate to using inquiry and research in PDS to their fullest potential.