In this wide-ranging interview with Educational Leadership, Stanford University Professor of Education Linda Darling-Hammond discusses the kind of preparation and support new teachers need to survive their critical first years in the classroom. Among her central recommendations are more intensive mentoring that lasts through the first year of teaching; solid preparation that meshes field work with course work; and attracting the right kind of candidates by investing in development programs and paying costs for candidates to get preparation. She also weighs the pros and cons of alternative models of preparation against the reason they exist. In conclusion, she comments on the current teacher-bashing and test reliance that are creating an "anti-profession" and undermining the enterprise of teaching. (Contains 5 endnotes.)