The professional pipeline represents a developmental perspective for fostering leadership capacity in schools and districts, from identification of potential talent during the recruitment phase to ensuring career-long learning through professional development. An intentional and mindful approach to supporting the development of educational leaders throughout their professional careers is critical to those who aspire to educational leadership and those who comprise the ranks of current administrative positions. How the profession enacts phases of the pipeline and the quality of these experiences serve as a message to candidates and practitioners alike. How we recruit, prepare, induct, and develop educational leaders may influence the expectations of and commitment levels to the profession of both candidates and practitioners, and ultimately may affect our ability to recruit and retain the most capable. Given the sweeping influences of effective educational leadership, our schools, teachers, children and communities deserve highly qualified, rigorously prepared leaders. This white paper seeks to outline the distinct phases of building the professional pipeline, share research concerning effective practices for each, and draw attention to the inter-related nature of the phases. For example, preparation programs maximize their effectiveness when districts and universities work together to recruit the right people into leadership roles. The preparation of educational leaders requires the strategic and intentional coordination of efforts by multiple stakeholders in leadership preparation and practice: professional organizations, state departments of education, higher education, and school districts. Each entity possesses a stake in highly qualified educational leaders and can make an important contribution to ensuring the caliber of educators who lead our schools and school districts. (Contains 1 figure, 1 table and 57 endnotes.)