Acceptance by the States of the Common Core Mathematics Standards represents a once‐in‐a‐lifetime opportunity for mathematics teachers to enhance their professional status much in the same way that university mathematicians did during the post‐Second World War era. Mathematics teachers themselves will have to drive this process‐‐numbers of teachers are too big, and the interests of other constituencies too compromised, for it to be otherwise. But the university community and government, among others, can help in essential ways. Those include programs for teacher‐leaders and teacher professional developers, and the nurturing of 'laboratories of excellence.'