This study of four private primary schools in Beirut, Lebanon, investigated why the children in the schools appeared to out-perform their peers in other schools. The study investigated the cultures that teachers and principals constructed in schools with children and their parents, wondering whether they would exhibit characteristics said to epitomise successful schools in "challenging circumstances". Whilst the findings suggested that they did, despite being in a very different cultural milieu from that in which models of school improvement had been developed, they also showed the importance of power in sustaining such cultures and particular teachers' and children's identities. (Contains 7 tables.)