This article examines the importance of political elite coalitions at local levels to create institutional reform in contemporary China. By exploring Shunde’s administrative reforms under Wang Yang, Guangdong’s provincial Party secretary from 2008 to 2012, this article identifies a provincial–grassroots coalition as the essential impetus to local reforms. It argues that formation of political elite coalitions, built upon mutual trust through reciprocal interactions, is crucial for the success of reform. Within the coalition, the strong reformist provincial leader provides his leadership by becoming intensively involved in the reform process, while active grassroots cadres serve as designers and executors of reform plans. By means of a comparison between the scenarios of active grassroots cadres without Wang and Wang with less enthusiastic grassroots cadres, the article concludes that this political elite coalition is by nature fragile; if either side is not present, the coalition will collapse, resulting in either the failure of reform or a deviation of existing reforms to a less fruitful pattern.