This article explores the motives and evolving identities of one group of graduate students enrolled in a teacher education program at an Ivy League university, who made the choice to teach in urban classrooms. The authors examine the perspectives these candidates give to the process of learning to teach and how their identities are tempered, challenged, and sometimes strengthened by a 12-week urban practicum. In this work, the authors give voice to these pre-service teachers in order to gain deeper insight into how they view what it means to teach in an urban public school, a phenomenon Haberman has referred to as "an extraordinary life experience". The subjects of this study offer instructive data for scholars precisely because these individuals seemingly have a plethora of career options from which to choose. Prior levels of education and academic achievement as well as other professional experiences qualify them for better paying and socially perceived higher status careers. Their choice--to invest 11 months of full-time study and tens of thousands of dollars in a degree which would allow them to pursue a career often viewed as challenging--deserves analysis. In this article, the authors present a brief review of the pre-service teacher identity development literature that grounds the study and a summary of the research methods. They then lay out their findings that suggest that the developing professional identities of these subjects are influenced by the personal identities they bring to the learning to teach process and their experiences teaching in urban public schools. Finally, they offer concluding observations regarding implications of the study. (Contains 3 tables and 3 notes.)