Recruiting and retaining good teachers ranks as one of the most significant roadblocks to solving the preschool quality crises facing the country. Evidence points to the low wages and benefits offered to preschool teachers as the single most important factor in hiring and keeping good teachers. This policy brief examines what is known about the connection between inadequate teacher compensation and preschool quality, and offers recommendations to improve quality through improvements in compensation and retention. Recommendations include the following: (1) Head Start could raise teacher qualifications and compensation to the level of K-12 education in public schools with only modest annual increases in funding; (2) state prekindergarten programs must have enough funds to ensure adequate and comparable pay in public school and private contracted programs; and (3) state policies to subsidize the supply of good preschool teachers will succeed in the long run only if other state policies also support adequate pay and benefits. (Contains 23 endnotes.) (HTH)