This paper describes how a Tennessee school district is lessening the differences in achievement between inner-city schools and their suburban counterparts by bettering the teaching staffs in the inner-city schools. The story highlights two pillars of the almost-stunning progress achieved by what were once bottom-of-the-barrel schools. One, the turnaround effort came from the schools and the district; and, two, the plan took as its primary strategy improving and stabilizing each school's teaching staff. With widespread acknowledgment that good teaching matters for student achievement more than any other single education resource, the superintendent and his team targeted a "teacher gap" to fix their most troubled needs. Five years into the plan, the schools as a group have made greater gains than 90 percent of the other elementary schools in the state for three years.