<p>Investigating the challenges immigrant teachers experience and the strategies they adopt for transitioning to the Aotearoa New Zealand (NZ) education system is critical for understanding how diverse pedagogical perspectives reshape and enrich local practices. Existing research has highlighted the difficulties encountered by immigrant teachers. This study takes a further step by recognising challenges they face and adopting an asset-based funds of knowledge (FoK) framework to explore ways Chinese immigrant teachers actively utilise their prior expertise to navigate and contribute to NZ’s early childhood education. Focusing on the lived experiences of five Chinese immigrant teachers, this study examines how they integrated their cultural resources and professional expertise into their current teaching in NZ through agentic actions. This study is guided by a post-intentional phenomenological (PIP) approach, which views phenomena as multiple, evolving, and relationally constituted within specific contexts. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews, analysis of early childhood curriculum documents from NZ and China, and entries from the authors’ post-reflexive journal. The combined use of the FoK and PIP frameworks facilitated the identification of themes that illustrate these teachers’ professional transitions. Findings reveal that while teachers experienced confusion and dissonance between the two educational contexts, they actively weaved Chinese cultural values and beliefs into local early childhood practices. Moreover, they engaged in an iterative process of reconstructing their professional identities during this transition process. This study argues that the FoK possessed by Chinese immigrant teachers served as resources through which they exercised agency for addressing challenges in new cultural and educational contexts in NZ.</p>