Research continues to confirm that without consistently excellent teaching, most students who start behind stay behind, and too few middling and advanced students leap ahead. Even hardworking, solid teachers who achieve one year of learning progress leave achievement gaps intact. When schools create an opportunity culture for teachers and students, they allow excellent teachers to extend their reach for more pay, within budget, and create new roles and in-school time for all teachers to learn on the job from the best, contribute to excellence immediately, improve their teaching skills, and pursue career advancement. Once policymakers commit to reaching every student with excellent teaching consistently, they can focus on the policies needed to enable an opportunity culture statewide. This brief details the policies that states and districts need to implement to achieve these goals. (Additional support in the writing of this brief was provided by Sharon Kebschull Barrett and Christen Holly.) [For "Seizing Opportunity at the Top II: State Policies to Reach Every Student with Excellent Teaching. Policymakers' Checklist," see ED560188.]