International exchanges provide unique opportunities for teacher educators to engage in thoughtful collaborations and facilitate the learning of pre-service teachers through critical reflections of local and international learning systems. As teacher educators from international contexts and with various disciplinary expertise, we collaborated on a self-study process to co- design international exchange experiences designed for pre-service teachers in Germany and in the United States. Through this self-study, we surfaced tensions based on our unique perspectives and experiences as teacher educators and formed a shared vision that informed our teacher education practices and enabled boundary-crossing practices. Discussions and implications were provided regarding internationalization through partnership in the third-space, interinstitutional collaboration via university-based courses and school-based field experiences, and for rethinking the binary of theory and praxis in teacher education.