Continuing education for in-service teachers is shifting from large-scale conferences or out-of-school workshops to the use of professional learning communities (PLCs). The purpose of this qualitative study was to investigate and describe how Educational Service Agency (ESA) personnel contribute to the development and support of PLCs for school improvement purposes. The following research questions were addressed: 1) In what ways do Georgia Regional Educational Service Agency (RESA) personnel support the establishment of professional learning communities? 2) In what ways do Georgia RESA personnel support existing professional learning communities? 3) What are the attributes of innovation that characterize RESA personnel's perspectives related to adoption of professional learning communities? Purposeful maximum variation sampling was used to select three Georgia Regional Educational Service Agency (RESA) school-improvement specialists to participate in semi-structured interviews. Interviews and document data were analyzed via constant comparative method. The diffusion of innovations theoretical framework was used to analyze perspectives of the RESA personnel regarding professional learning communities. Results indicated: 1) ESA personnel facilitated the organization and conceptualization of PLCs when schools begin the process of forming PLCs; 2) ESA personnel generally provided idiosyncratic and episodic support for PLCs with little or no accountability practices; 3) ESA personnel were unable to provide support to remove the communication barriers within PLCs; and 4) due to its relative advantage, ESA personnel were willing to adopt PLCs as a method of professional learning, however incompatibilities exist between the time needed for PLCs and the current workload of ESA personnel, and ESA personnel were limited in their trialability of PLCs. Implications include a need for ESA personnel to develop training for school-based educators to support collaboration within PLCs, and a need for ESA personnel themselves to participate in training and continuing education for their work in supporting PLCs. There was also a need for ESAs to plan for long-term institutionalization of an innovation, and to implement accountability practices with professional learning. A final implication is that the Georgia RESAs were not adequately staffed to support PLCs on a broad basis.