A recent report of the American Educational Research Association Panel on Research and Teacher Education confirms beyond question earlier findings exposing the limited utility of our research base in answering questions pertaining to policy or practice concerning preparation and licensing of teachers. Conditions accounting for this perplexing circumstance are described in detail by the panel, as are recommendations provided for overcoming them. A recent research project anticipating many of the recommendations led this articles authors to the view that several of the recommendations need added detail to be immediately helpful to the research community and that further recommendations are needed for "scaled-up" research called for by the panel. Accordingly, suggested additions and refinements, with accompanying rationale and examples, are proposed. A central theme of this article is the need to add explanatory power to teacher education research, with the accompanying caution that doing so brings added complexity to theory, measurement, and design. (Contains 2 tables, 4 notes and 1 figure.)