The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) raise the bar for student performance by setting college readiness as the goal for all students and emphasizing the critical thinking skills needed for success in college and career, beginning in elementary school (Porter, McMaken, Hwant, & Yang, 2011; Rothman, 2011). The CCSS have the potential to close the gap in college readiness between low-income students and their more affluent peers, but the success of these standards depends on how teachers act on them in their classrooms. Growing gaps in achievement and college attainment between low-income and high-income students make the need for understanding how teachers translate instructional policies into meaningful improvements in instruction and student achievement for low-income students all the more pressing (Bailey & Dynarski, 2011; Reardon, 2011). Research on past standards reform suggests that principals play an important role in framing messages about reform and their implications for the work of teachers (Anagnostopoulos & Rutledge, 2007; Coburn, 2006). I conducted a multiple site case study of three high-poverty schools in a large urban district participating in a professional development network designed to support their work in implementing the CCSS over the course of one year (2013) to understand how principals frame the challenge presented by the CCSS and how these frames influence the work of teachers (Yin, 2009). In this study I use frame analysis (Goffman, 1974) to examine how principals frame the challenge presented by the CCSS as they interpret the problem presented by policy. Scholars argue that policy problems are socially constructed as implementers interpret some aspect of their social world as problematic (Coburn, 2006; Spillane, 2000; Spillane, Reiser, & Reimer, 2002). My findings suggest that principals who frame the challenge presented by the CCSS as one of learning how to improve instruction and student learning may be more successful in mobilizing teachers to revise their instructional practice to align with standards than those who frame the challenge as one of executing particular instructional approaches. When principals framed the problem presented by standards as a learning challenge (Edmondson, 2012), they authorized teachers to seek out problems of student learning, experiment with new approaches and materials, and revise their instruction to better support their students in meeting standards. As high-poverty schools across the country prepare to adopt the CCSS, learning about the actions principals can take to support teachers in learning how to meet these ambitious standards is urgent.