Recognizing the considerable significance of schools' ability to create an environment of trust and mutual respect, the Center for Teaching Quality--in collaboration with the North Carolina Professional Teaching Standards Commission and with generous support from the Karen and Christopher Payne Family Foundation--conducted two focus groups with eleven schools to learn more about how they create these environments at their respective schools. The schools were selected based on their teachers' overwhelmingly positive responses to the trust and mutual respect-related items on the 2006 Teacher Working Conditions survey. Each school team included a principal and at least one teacher representative. In order to promote the trust and mutual respect needed to support student learning, schools across the state can benefit from the lessons and practices of these exemplary schools. Toward that end, this brief examines the efforts of eleven North Carolina schools whose educators report exceedingly high levels of trust. Lessons from the focus groups provide the opportunity to move beyond the recognition of high working conditions performance toward an understanding of the specific practices and strategies that promote and sustain these environments. (Contains 2 tables and 2 notes.)