School librarians know the importance of collaboration. They cannot run effective school library programs unless they work closely with classroom teachers. They have learned that deep collaboration is a fluid process that evolves over time. Only as connections are made and relationships are forged can real instructional progress occur. Yet it seems as if school librarians spend so much of their time adjusting to changes in personnel, curriculum, and initiatives that they are constantly skimming the surface of collaboration. They build many bridges, but they rarely have a chance to maximize their effectiveness by delving deeply into the complexities of the inquiry process itself. Fortunately, the school library program of Cecil County Public Schools chose to dig a little deeper into the thinking skills embedded in the research process. In this article, the authors describe the development of a research model which applied to social studies collaboration. (Contains 3 diagrams.)