One of the most effective forms of professional learning happens when teachers conduct collaborative inquiry in their own classrooms around difficult and challenging topics -- even topics that are potentially divisive. In this article, the authors describe how they have seen this powerful process at work in their district in Pitt County, North Carolina, where teachers became collaborative researchers and addressed instructional problems of practice in their own classrooms. They developed and used skills to better understand diverse perspectives, analyzed data to efficiently examine possible causes, and engaged in a collaborative cycle of inquiry to investigate and address the underlying issues. The authors found that this process leads to positive changes, even in areas that are complex and sometimes conflictual. They found that the structure of their communities of practice empowers educators to come together to address these difficult, even potentially divisive, problems in ways that result in improved student learning and increased teacher efficacy, understanding, and collaboration.