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When CME Group Foundation (CME) was formed in 2007 with an endowment from the Chicago Mercantile Exchange Trust, its founders set out to engage in grantmaking that would improve education from cradle to career and strengthen the region’s economy. During its first decade, nearly a quarter of CME’s grants targeted early childhood education with an emphasis on improving early math education. With students in the United States trailing students from other industrialized nations in math, CME’s leaders believed it was crucial to address the problem in the early years. Helping low-income children in Chicago build essential math skills would not only help them succeed in school but would also further the success and economic well-being of the state and the nation. From the beginning, CME’s executive director and board recognized that improving student outcomes in math would require improving the skills and knowledge that teachers brought to the classroom. In 2010, equipped with the knowledge that many elementary school teachers in Chicago lacked the content knowledge, pedagogical skills and confidence to teach math most effectively, CME’s leaders launched a new Early Math Education Initiative. Six years later, CME collaborated with the University of Chicago, University of Illinois at Chicago, DePaul University and Chicago Public Schools (CPS) to launch the Elementary Math Specialist Pilot (EMS Pilot). The pilot delivered graduate courses to elementary school teachers to strengthen their math knowledge as well as their instructional and leadership skills. This case study examines pivotal moments in the development of CME’s Early Math Education Initiative and Elementary Math Specialist Pilot, including research and data that fueled the foundation’s grantmaking and perspectives from funders and educators on collaboration, partnerships and levers for change. The case also poses questions about sustainability and the potential for statewide impact.