While there have been neuroimaging studies of text comprehension, little is known about the brain mechanisms underlying strategic learning from text. It was hypothesized that reading strategies would involve areas of the brain that are normally involved in reading comprehension along with areas that are involved in strategic control processes because the readers are intentionally using a complex learning strategy. The present study was designed to answer the question of what brain areas are active during performance of complex reading strategies. Activation was found in both executive control and comprehension areas, and furthermore, learning gains were found to be associated with activation in the anterior prefrontal cortex.