This qualitative case study examines the conflicts and challenges that one American junior high school experienced when a substantial number of African-American families migrated to the community from Chicago to secure Section 8 housing; their housing projects had recently been felled through the auspices of HOPE VI (Housing Opportunities for People Everywhere), a federally-funded bi-partisan initiative that sought to decentralize poverty in America. The study's findings highlight the conflicts and tensions this in-migration caused, the school's initial efforts to mediate them through a process of acculturation, and the progress it made once it recognized cultural difference and refused to let it function as an on-going source of cultural conflict.