With the increased state and national focus on student achievement, school leaders are pursuing a variety of strategies to better serve their students. Many effective principals are embracing distributive leadership, relying on their best teachers to also provide instructional leadership. Yet, many effective teachers have not had training (and often not the desire) to step into leadership roles. To respond to the challenge of increasing student achievement while building the instructional leadership capacity within its teaching staff, one district developed the concept of The Instructional Team, referred to in the district as The "I" Team. Three years after implementation, district teachers were surveyed and some participated in focus groups regarding The "I" Team's impact on instructional teaching strategies. Although The "I" Team seemed to enjoy support among the teaching ranks and scores on state-mandated tests were improving, changes in the administrative leadership prompted a scaling back of this successful program. (Contains 11 tables.)