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Abstract The pipeline of highly trained STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) professionals has narrowed in recent decades, forcing society to re‐examine how schools are discovering and developing STEM talent. Of particular concern is the finding that rural students attend post‐secondary schools at lower rates than their urban counterparts, and when they do attend, they are less likely to graduate from STEM programs. One reason may be that they are not prepared for advanced STEM coursework because they lack access to essential STEM talent‐development programs in middle or high school. This creates excellence gaps, which exacerbate the narrowing STEM pipeline to the workforce. To address this, we formed a university–school partnership to develop an outside‐of‐school STEM talent development program, called STEM Excellence, for rural middle‐school students who attend under‐resourced schools. The aim of STEM Excellence was to increase students’ achievement and aspirations while empowering their teachers to develop local STEM programs grounded in developmental psychology theories. STEM Excellence integrated the Talent Development Megamodel Principles of ability, domains of talent, opportunity, and psychosocial variables. STEM Excellence also recognized the interplay of multiple person–environment systems as presented in the Bioecological Systems Model.