This article examines the case of Laura, a 9-year-old Mexican immigrant who officially "failed to learn English" in an American school. It may be more accurate to say that schooling failed Laura, and in ways that went beyond language learning. This diagnosis of failure is criticized, along with the individualistic and essentialist assumptions about success and failure that support it. My analysis, based on a sociocultural notion of agency, suggests that Laura and her teachers uncritically shared an institutionally mediated agenda for school success, rooted in contradictory institutional demands and lack of access to each others' subjectivities. As a result, Laura unintentionally and ironically participated in her own failure construction. (Contains 3 footnotes.)