In the United States, state-level agencies manage a variety of early care and education (ECE) programs serving children birth through age 5, including publicly funded preschool programs. A state office of early learning (SOEL) often oversees and manages select early childhood programs. SOELs typically have a significant role in such tasks as setting policy to ensure the quality of programs, distributing funding to local programs, and collecting data for accountability and continuous improvement. This report shares the results of case studies focused on the SOELs in the four states of Alabama, Michigan, New Jersey, and West Virginia. The research questions that guided this project were: (1) What are the structural and organizational capacities of effective SOELs? (2) What are the enabling conditions--leadership, staffing, other contextual factors--of effective SOELs? and (3) What are the critical functions necessary for SOELs to effectively execute their authority to implement major programs, including but not limited to the public preschool program? To set the stage for the case studies, Section 1 highlights prior research that contributed to the conceptual framework. Section 2 describes the study methodology. The individual case studies for each of the four SOELs are provided in Sections 3, 4, 5, and 6. Each case study begins with an overview of the SOEL and its parent agency, including a brief history of early education in the state and the office of early learning, funding of the SOEL, and SOEL structure and staffing. This introductory text is followed by the findings for each of the three research questions. Finally, Section 7 provides a recap of the major findings in each of the four states, as well as a cross-state summary of what was learned.