This article focuses on the period between 1966 and 1968, when the original vision of the policymakers of the National Teacher Corps (NTC) and the federal staffers who created the NTC initiative held sway. In their vision, the "best and brightest" (according to their criteria) could better solve the problems of educating so-called disadvantaged students than professionals conventionally prepared for the classroom. The architects of the NTC presumed that successful teaching in the most challenging classrooms required intrinsic qualities, a liberal arts education, and an understanding of the "disadvantaged." The rest, they expected, could be learned on the job. This vision took aim both at existing teachers and traditional programs of teacher education, challenging their professionalism and, in a larger sense, casting suspicion on the notion of professional training itself. (Contains 99 footnotes.)