This article explores how members of small work groups use audible and visible actions to coordinate conversational interaction. The analysis of this activity context includes some methods for re-engaging turn-by-turn talk after it has lapsed, as well as some methods for making relevant a lapse in talk, and dis-engaging it, once it has been engaged. In addition, the actions positioned at conversational boundaries, both pre-re-engaging and post-dis-engaging, show the members' orientation to phases of lapse and phases of turn-by-turn talk.This study is part of a larger dissertation project (Szymanski 1996). I thank Rebecca Simon and her third-graders for welcoming me into their classroom. I also gratefully acknowledge Gene Lerner, John Gumperz, Leslie Jarmon, and Jürgen Streeck for their valuable comments on earlier drafts of this article.