The purpose of this research was twofold: (a) to assess educator self-reported knowledge, skills, and perceptions of twice-exceptional children's characteristics for best practices in identification and (b) to develop strong educator competencies through professional development sessions for serving and nurturing twice-exceptional learners in rural, Title I general education classrooms. Empirical research on underrepresented populations involving the identification of 2e learners has been conducted in the recent decade; however, there is limited research in the field of gifted education surrounding the perceptions acquired by educators who serve this population of learners in rural, Title I schools. A mixed methods approach incorporating an explanatory sequential design was conducted as well as semi-structured interviews. The quantitative component included an examination of educators' self-reported familiarity of and experience with twice-exceptional student's characteristics as well as their confidence to make referrals for 2e children in their educational setting. Further, the researcher examined areas from the professional development that led educators to make the greatest realizations about 2e children through semi-structured interviews. Posttest one-way ANOVAs (Welch tests) results indicated significant group differences between the comparison and treatment group on nine familiarity items and one experience item. Next, results from four ANCOVAs indicated significant differences between the comparison and treatment groups. The posttest Matched Pair Sign Test resulted in a significant difference, p = < 0.001 between the comparison and treatment group. The results from 10 McNemar tests resulted in no significant differences between groups. The qualitative analyses resulted in four emerged themes regarding professional development areas in which educators made the greatest realizations for recognizing 2e learners: (a) the professional development increased awareness about 2e students, (b) the series of workshops created collaborative groups for the discussion of student needs, (c) the implementation of strength-based talent-focused instruction and student interactions resulted in classroom innovations, and (d) teacher growth occurred from the professional development series. [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.]