Intervention research indicates that historical inquiry curricula call for different tasks, materials, and methods of teaching compared to those focused solely on content. Inquiry curricula require teachers to shift from the methods, materials, and assessments to which they are accustomed. As a result, despite intervention research efforts that have been successful in engaging adolescents in reading and thinking like historians, teachers' uptake of these interventions remains very limited. One of the obstacles to greater uptake is that for many of the topics and periods of history, teachers must design and develop materials and tasks that would enable them to implement inquiry-oriented instruction. It is not surprising that teachers find this to be an overwhelming set of demands. Thus, even when teachers espouse beliefs about the value of inquiry instruction, it is infrequently implemented in their classrooms, especially when change is expected all at once and overnight. Such expectations are simply unrealistic, with most scholars estimating months to years for meaningful and lasting change in instructional practices. This paper reports a case study of a middle school teacher's gradual change process as she partnered with researchers to iteratively design and implement her history instruction. This collaboration created a transition from a focus on teaching names, dates, and events to instruction that supported her middle school students' engagement in historical inquiry. This case illustrates the evolutionary transition of the instructional practices and learning processes of this middle school teacher. As such, it can serve an educative function for other educators who may wish to adapt the process as they design and implement inquiry-based social studies curricula in their own classroom contexts.