Part of a special issue on challenging corporate control of schools and communities. The writer discusses her experience with the Big Brothers and Big Sisters organization in Oakland, California, of mentoring two teenage girls who live in poverty and encounter crises and hardship almost daily. She examines the concepts of agency and social and cultural borderlands to help explain the divergent school performances of the two girls and investigates the concepts' utility in the pursuit of social justice for young women. She conducts her exploration within the broader context of dynamic change.