Teacher leadership is used to describe a variety of phenomena in the educational arena. Formal leadership roles, informal leadership roles, leadership styles, personal characteristics, improvement processes, professional development, and other assorted activities are associated with teacher leadership. Clarity is needed in this area so teacher leadership may be advanced as a legitimate vehicle for improving schools and the teaching profession. Using teachers' viewpoints, this study sought to identify the essential elements of teacher leadership and the factors which foster or inhibit its development. A literature review on teacher leadership was conducted. Q-Methodology was utilized to study forty-three public elementary school teachers' perceptions of teacher leadership. Participants sorted forty-two statement cards about teacher leadership based on their level of agreement with them. The statements were drawn from the teacher leadership literature and polling. The card sorts were statistically analyzed using PQMethod. Five individual or focus group interviews provided further qualitative follow-up through participant explanation, interpretation, and clarification of the sorts. Data analysis yielded three significant factor viewpoints: teamwork and continuous learning for the classroom, widespread leadership of others for change, and guiding leadership which bridges organizational levels. Based on the study findings, teacher leadership activities focusing in classroom, professional learning community, and schoolwide contexts were examined using a role orientation and scope of influence perspective. A framework for defining teacher leadership and the success conditions which