A year-long study focused on how the teacher-librarian partnership was enacted within different elementary school contexts where there is a literature-based approach for instruction. Teachers and librarians at two schools were observed for a total of 392 hours. Purposeful conversations to gather information or interviews were employed in conjunction with the observation. Eight theoretical constructs emerged from data analysis: (1) partnership events occurred in three ways--purposeful, springboard, and accidental; (2) partnerships supported literature-based instruction; (3) to survive, partnerships must have evidenced support, maintenance, and reward; (4) technology expanded teacher-librarian partnership possibilities; (5) contextual constraints or barriers existed which impeded teacher-librarian partnerships; (6) literature-based instruction had different meanings to different practitioners; (7) literature-based instruction was distinguished from whole language by practitioners; and (8) literature-based approaches were limited by and confounded with skills approaches, district expectations, and eclectic methods. Findings address how the teacher-librarian partnership evolves in the elementary school curriculum and how the teacher-librarian partnership is enacted. (Contains 19 references.) (RS)