LeeAnn Hall directs the Northwest Federation of Community Organizations (NWFCO), a collaboration of four state-based community organizations engaged in the fight for social and economic justice. Leadership development is at the heart of the NWFCO mission and central to LeeAnn's own leadership style. Through training and issue-specific campaigns, NWFCO and its affiliated organizations build grassroots capacity to effect social change. This ethnography focuses on the very personal process by which people begin to self-identify and act as leaders. It explores what enables people to envision a different future, both in terms of what they can do and to what end. The results of this research illuminate what it takes to foster and sustain a sense of efficacy and a commitment to action