One or more surgical instruments provide access to delicate tissue, such as brain tissue or breast tissue, through a transcutaneous incision, for a variety of reasons, such as to access a surgical site for providing a working channel for accessing delicate tissue by surgical instruments, to provide access to insert an inflatable prosthesis, or for providing an external buttress channel for supporting tissue thereon. The surgical instrument assembly includes an interleaved combination of an open sleeve hollow retractor and a tapered tipped wedge introducer. The wedge introducer is introduced into an area adjacent to the hollow sleeve. The distal tip of the wedge introducer extends beyond a distal end of the hollow retractor, forward of a distal end of the hollow retractor, so that the wedge introdticer traverses delicate tissue ahead of the distal end of the hollow retractor, guiding the hollow retractor into place to the delicate tissue.
