Urban schools across the country have been identified as having far lower rates of students that are prepared to graduate into STEM college programs and/or begin STEM careers. Issues with urban high school's drop-out rate and below average performance on STEM courses, in concurrence with the increasing demand for STEM occupations across the United States, leads to a gap between high school graduates who were ready and able to start STEM college programs and vacant STEM jobs. This research focused specifically in Miami-Dade County, which has the fifth largest school district in the United States. Five STEM private-school Miami-Dade County teachers that had successful outcomes in STEM were asked, what their perceptions of teaching STEM were in relation to STEM college and STEM career readiness in an urban Miami-Dade County community. Five themes emerged from the qualitative data that fills a gap in urban STEM education literature by pinpointing essential considerations for teachers and administrators who are currently offering STEM offerings or would like to offer STEM offerings, within their schools: (a) effective leadership; (b) teacher autonomy; (c) bilingual/multilingual students and STEM; (d) parent involvement; and (e) salary. In order to prepare Miami-Dade County's students for STEM college programs and STEM careers, there needs to be intentional pathways created by urban STEM administrators to prepare their students for STEM. This study concluded that teachers who are passionate to learn and teach STEM content can effectively prepare their students for STEM college programs and STEM careers. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2222/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]