Roles carried out by 26 teachers in a large, urban elementary school were explored within a conceptualization of the organization as a streetlevel bureaucracy. The interpretations and responses to the organizational characteristics of the school were analyzed, centering on four major task areas of teaching: disciplining students, teaching the curriculum, assigning homework, and promoting students. The range of behavior in carrying out these tasks of the teaching role was developed into a typology of three distinct modes of role enactment.