This is a story about urban students becoming urban teachers. It begins with the 1988 U.S. Department of Education funding of a bold idea: attracting multicultural/multilingual students to begin their teacher preparation at a two year college, preparing them to continue at a 4 year college. This is how the Milwaukee Area Technical College became one of the first (if not "the" first) 2 year colleges in the country to offer such a program. The Cooperative Urban Teacher Education Program (CUTEP), then the Teacher Education track, and now Educational Foundations has, throughout these name changes, aimed to recruit and prepare students of color and their allies for success in K-12 licensing tracks at 4 year colleges and then as teachers in the Milwaukee Public School district. The characteristics of Star Teachers of Children in Poverty, as posited and discussed by Dr. Martin Haberman in his 1995 publication, are discussed and then exemplified by the words of CUTEP alumni, gleaned and directly quoted from interviews conducted with the author, a 10 year teacher and coordinator of the program now known as the Educational Foundations track of Liberal Arts and Sciences. The interview questions were shared prior to face-to-face conversations and were intended to surface the students' thoughts on how their personal backgrounds and educational experiences within the 2 year college program contributed to their ability to navigate the 4 year college environment and, subsequently, guide their professional practice, decision making, and relationships in their school buildings. Their responses reveal a profound commitment to students, but also a frustration with time-consuming reporting mandates, constantly changing curriculum standards, over-filled classrooms, insufficient support from other professionals, and resistance to addressing the systemic causes of racially identifiable gaps in achievement. As school districts face staffing shortages due to veteran teachers retiring, younger teachers leaving the profession, and college-age students choosing professions with greater monetary and psychological compensation and respect, the words of these former students, now teachers are instructive. Their reflections on their own educational backgrounds, near misses and achievements, reveal a deep desire to be effective teachers of "their own," knowing that for poor children, having an effective teacher is, as Haberman puts it, "a matter of life and death."