In this article, the authors argue that teacher education programs should equip future teachers with skills for engaging in productive collaboration focused on improving instruction. Because little is known about pre-service teachers' beginning conceptions of collaboration and the ways in which collaboration skills can be developed, the authors conducted a study to investigate these issues. Their findings can be summarized as follows: (1) Pre-service teachers' initial conceptions of collaboration do not necessarily match with the kind of collaboration expected of them in professional development settings such as lesson study or professional learning communities; (2) With support, pre-service teachers can learn to collaborate and find collaboration useful; and (3) Collaboration in fieldwork settings can further develop collaboration skills. Although study findings suggest that providing pre-service teachers with opportunities to engage in collaborative analysis of teaching across university and school settings contributes to the development of important collaboration dispositions and skills, the findings also highlight the need for a system of support that guides pre-service teachers' development. If pre-service teachers were to engage in productive collaboration early on, the most sophisticated levels of collaboration could perhaps be reached by the majority of them by the end of the teacher education program. (Contains 1 figure.)