The Talent Development approach to helping greater numbers of students succeed in middle school is based on a belief that all students can learn challenging material if the right types of support are given. This report presents the essential components of the Talent Development framework and describes their initial implementation in Evans Junior High School, Washington, D.C. and Central East Middle School, Philadelphia (Pennsylvania). The essential components of the framework include a curriculum aimed at active learning, an emphasis on cultural empowerment, a communal organization of school, a total detracking of instruction, growth-oriented assessment, a multilayered pedagogy, career exploration, and family affirmation. Evans Junior High School is a regular junior high in a low socioeconomic area of the city. It enrolls approximately 320 students, all of whom are African American. Approximately 25% receive Title I services and about 6% are in special education. Central Middle School has about 1,000 students in grades 5 through 8, mostly from low socioeconomic levels. The school has a highly diverse student body, with about 45% Hispanic students, 24% African American, 13% Asian, 8% White, and about 10% who define themselves in other ways. Although the implementation of the Talent Development approach is in its early stages, these schools are recognizably different from schools operating under the traditional sorting paradigm. Three appendixes discuss student team writing and reading, the career exploration approach and decision-making training, and present active affirmation program materials. (Contains 1 figure and 34 references.) (SLD)