A primary purpose of teacher education is to prepare and induct candidates into the teaching profession. What does it mean to be a professional educator? Is deep content knowledge really enough as the federal government and others suggest? Does professionalism look different in urban contexts? How do teachers learn to navigate the multiple opportunities and challenges they are faced with day-by-day, hour-by-hour, minute-by-minute in today's high-stakes accountability climate? What happens when teachers do not learn how to successfully navigate the realities? This article examines notions of professionalism and how one preservice teacher learned to become a professional educator in the context of an urban school-university partnership. In this article, the concept of professionalism is considered from multiple perspectives, including from the perspective of scholars who contend a specialized knowledge base is necessary for successful urban teaching and that school-university and professional development school partnerships may provide contexts for developing this knowledge base. Then, a collective case study is described and one typical case from the study illuminates the possibilities and challenges of becoming a professional educator in an urban school-university partnership.