Rural education thrives on building teaching capacity and mentoring from within communities. Whilst isolated and remote areas have the potential to participate in online teacher education, strategic and effective delivery requires a targeted analysis of the characteristics of the learners, the motivations that drive them, and day-to-day environmental and community factors influencing the students' studies. This paper reports on an innovative model of teacher education recently implemented in the Republic of Nauru. In this model, the Nauruan Government has partnered with an Australian regional university to develop quality Pacific-focused teacher education programs that are delivered through a hybrid of online and classroom instruction. The Nauru Teacher Education Project (NTEP), conceptualised and administered by the University of New England, provides culturally responsive online and on-island teacher development for the community of Nauru. It is here that the lecturers come to 'know the students'.