This project was my search for a culture of excellence. At the start of the search, I broke down an ethic of excellence into moral character and performance character. Then set an aim that students would self report an increase in the quality of their character and the quality of cohort culture through their project based learning. Change actions took place both in the 10th grade classroom and in professional development at the school site. Imagine. Identify. Ideate. Act. Reflect. We used this framework as an axis of the practice to cultivate a culture of excellence. In addition, in our classroom with the cohort of 10th graders, we named excellence, increased transparency within teams of students, and applied critical care in order to hold each other accountable and to build a caring community. Findings from this project suggested that a culture of excellence is diverse. It is cultivated through an iterative and progressive learning cycle and making that cycle a habit establishes excellent teams that function well. A team that collaborates well is a team built upon trust and accountability. All of this is an art of leadership.