From the start of Acts, the term "elder" was used to refer to those who accompanied more formal Jewish leadership. They appear distinct at every point.
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Act 4:5 And it came to pass on the morrow, that their rulers and elders and scribes were gathered together in Jerusalem;
Act 4:8 Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said unto them, Ye rulers of the people, and elders,
Act 4:23 And being let go, they came to their own company, and reported all that the chief priests and the elders had said unto them.
Act 6:12 And they stirred up the people, and the elders, and the scribes, and came upon him, and seized him, and brought him into the council,
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From these verses the Jewish elders do not appear to be "rulers of the people" nor "scribes" nor "chief priests," but they are something other than just the common "people."
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Act 11:29 And the disciples, every man according to his ability, determined to send relief unto the brethren that dwelt in Judea:
Act 11:30 which also they did, sending it to the elders by the hand of Barnabas and Saul.
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In this verse, we see the term used the first time in Acts to refer to a group that was potentially distinct from the prior usage, although it is not crystal clear. Because the relief is being sent to "the brothers" and is to be delivered to "the elders", these "elders" appear to be a new group distinct from the old group of "elders" who were in the company of the rulers of the people, the scribes and the chief priests until now.
The key is to determine who are "the brothers" here. But once again, from the start of Acts, the word "brethren" is also used to refer generally to the fellow Jews in Jerusalem.
Working from Still's thesis that Luke intended Acts as the factual basis for a legal argument that the Christians were engaged in a lawful practice of religion under Roman law because it was authorized as a reform movement of the Jewish religion, the indistinct usages of "elder" and "brethren" when referring to groups of alternatively Jews and Christians leads in that direction. However, to maintain the foundation of truth, these terms must be susceptable to legitimate construction in very general and non-official terms.
My meaning is this: if I refer to "brothers" and "elders" and mean "the Jews and their leaders" in one place and then, without making a clear distinction, refer to "brothers" and "elders" and mean "the Christians and their leaders," then either those terms are quite amorphous and don't mean much of anything or I am being intentionally misleading. In that I cannot ascribe the latter to the author of the New Testament book, I'm inclined to believe that "brothers" and "elders" could not have been very rigidly defined terms with very distinct meanings between the Jewish background and the Christian practice. And, specifically, I think the meaning wasn't merely indistinguishable between the Jews and the Christians due to similarity but that the terms really only meant general things that were very broadly applicable in both contexts.