The article gives an account of the context, process and results of the radical transformation of a rural school serving a Mapuche community in the south of Chile, which in 2007 had the worst learning results of the country. A decade later, against all the odds of territorial isolation, socio-economic poverty and cultural distance from the mainstream, the school is consistently achieving results equivalent to the average of upper middle status schools in the main cities of highly urbanized Chile. At the heart of the change is ambitious and effective teaching that both cares and is able to help students substantially grow in terms of their fundamental skills. The article examines the forces and actors involved, the concepts, moral orientation, means and strategies through which they acted, and the time-scale of the project.