In 2014, the close-knit education community in California's rural Humboldt county came together to address the potential to improve students' college readiness and completion. A diverse group of education leaders spanning K-12 through college formed the collaborative, with leadership from the Humboldt County Office of Education. The John W. Gardner Center for Youth and Their Communities at the Stanford Graduate School of Education partnered with the collaborative to design and lead a professional learning process for participating educators. At the heart of the collaborative was an effort to help partners use cycles of inquiry to analyze, study, and act on data. Participating districts and institutions of higher education focused on indicators relevant to the region, such as student participation in college prep curriculum, access and uptake of student supports, and completion of financial aid applications. In a survey of collaborative partners, after most members had been involved for one or two years, most respondents either agreed or strongly agreed that, through the adoption of the cycle of inquiry approach, their district or institution had broadly built its capacity for continuous learning and improvement. All agreed or strongly agreed that, as individuals, they would likely take what they had learned through participation in the collaborative to their future positions.