Among professors in higher education, it is widely acknowledged that performance majors will teach as a component of their future careers. While these musicians-in-training may accept this professional reality, they often hold narrow expectations of what student populations they might teach, for example, imagining a future coaching already proficient students to highest artistic pursuits. Unfortunately, these performance majors may hold dismissive views of other student populations and educational settings, such as working with a child on elementary rudiments or with groups of novice adults. In other words, emerging professionals can benefit from a broadened perspective, through key experiences in performance studies and in instrumental pedagogy courses, specifically in developing their capacity—and potentially their identity—as a music educator. Using tenets of teacher development from music education, this paper presentation establishes several best practices for instrumental pedagogy courses, to provide a research-based framework for building varied curricula. To support this, there is a growing body of research in the identity development in music education and in the career perceptions of performance majors (see select references). Key curricular components include: developing technical aspects of teaching, promoting agency through authentic context learning, providing field and student teaching experiences, participating in communities of practice and peer mentorship, reflecting on key experiences, and addressing dissonances within identity (such as tensions between performer and educator roles). Notwithstanding, there are limitations within performance degrees that must be considered; for example, instrument-specific pedagogy courses (i.e. piano pedagogy) are limited, often a one- or two-semester curriculum within the final stages of a degree. It is a formidable challenge—but significant and transformational—for professors of to nurture the performer’s skill set and identity as music educator, equipping graduates to serve a broad range of learners within the communities they will live.