The growing poverty and inequity in America should create a sense of urgency in researchers to leverage what they know for the public good--to intervene more productively and vigorously in an ever more fragile public educational system and to address the increasing vulnerability of far too many youth in the United States. The current worldwide recession, complicated if not bolstered by antiwelfare, antigovernment, antitax, and anti-immigrant ideologies and sentiments, and a dramatic retrenchment of the civil rights agenda, has become a fertile ground for powerful market-based approaches to solve economic, educational, and social problems. In this context, Mike Rose is a powerful voice in articulating a practical theory of how to organize an educational system that works for all students, as he argues for an approach to human learning that takes seriously the real conditions of labor, in which human intelligence always plays a central role. In this article, the author aims to explore how Rose's central method for designing and studying expansive forms of learning for all students aligns with the foundations of the methodology that educators have come to be associated with cultural historical activity theory (CH/AT), although one will not find the terms or the principles in Rose's work. Although Rose's work always has broad appeal, the author argues that it should have particular resonance for scholars employing a CH/AT approach in their work, as his article is rich in providing important insight into many of the relevant issues with which researchers wrestle in their individual case studies, and often with less success than Rose.