This paper reports a study of two beginning teacher educators making the transition from classroom teacher to university-based teacher educator. A hybrid qualitative methodology, combining case study and self-study of teacher education practices, was used to investigate features of the institutional context they encountered, the knowledge bases they employed in their decision making, and the merging of their former identities as classroom teachers with their new identities as teacher educators. The paper reports on the questions that guided the study, its research frames and methodology, and the first two categories of results--institutional context and shifting role identification. These findings offer insights into the ways in which both beginning teacher educators managed to recast their teaching identities. A subsequent paper builds on these insights by addressing the frames of understanding and knowledge employed in this transition and by describing how these frames informed decisions made in the arena of teacher education practice. (Contains 1 table.)