Municipal leadership can make an enormous difference in expanding the range of high school options and ensuring that more students graduate prepared for work and life. This report draws upon lessons learned from a 2005-07 project on "Helping Municipal Leaders Expand Options and Alternatives for High School," managed by the National League of Cities (NLC) Institute for Youth, Education, and Families (YEF Institute) with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, to show how five competitively selected cities made significant strides toward changing and expanding the high school choices available to students and parents, particularly for struggling students and those who had already dropped out. Hand in hand with school districts and community partners, mayors and other municipal leaders in Corpus Christi, Texas; Hartford, Connecticut; Phoenix, Arizona; San Antonio and San Jose, California, developed and pursued highly focused plans for expanding high school options, ranging from overhauls of existing schools to establishment of new college prep and alternative schools. Grounded in the experience of municipal efforts to expand local high school options, this report identifies several "lessons learned" outlining how city leaders can make a powerful impact on their community's high schools. In particular, the report finds that mayors and other municipal officials can play at least five key roles in driving systemic change: (1) Setting higher expectations; (2) Scaling up public engagement efforts; (3) Increasing the mayor's role in establishing a vision and promoting shared accountability; and (4) Marshalling new resources to expand high school options. A glossary and list of resources are included. (Contains 7 endnotes.)