Twelve high schools in North Carolina piloted a 1:1 learning initiative, where every student and teacher received a laptop computer with wireless Internet access provided throughout the school. The overall goals of the initiative were to improve teaching practices; increase student achievement; and better prepare students for work, citizenship, and life in the 21st century. A longitudinal evaluation study in the high schools focused on the schools' progress toward implementing the 1:1 initiative and the barriers, successes, and lessons learned at various stages of implementation. A combination of teacher and student surveys, focus groups, interviews, classroom observations, and existing school-level data were collected from study participants. Analysis of these data revealed specific recommendations about deployment, wireless network, hardware tools, software tools, policies and procedures, support personnel, professional development, school leadership, and sustainability for a successful 1:1 learning initiative. (Contains 1 figure.)