The knowledge, skills, and practices of early childhood care providers and teachers are critical factors in their delivery of high-quality developmental and educational experiences to young children. However, studies have found that the majority of professionals that make up the current early childhood workforce are not adequately prepared. Recent national policy research indicates that systemic shifts are needed for states to effectively prepare, recruit, support, and retain a high-quality early childhood workforce. In 2008, the National Association for the Education of Young Children's (NAEYC) Early Childhood Workforce Systems Initiative produced "Workforce Designs: A Policy Blueprint for State Early Childhood Professional Development Systems," which provides a series of recommendations around building and sustaining a stable, highly skilled, knowledgeable, diverse, and well-compensated professional workforce. To draft the blueprint, early childhood national experts, state policymakers, program administrators, and other stakeholders were consulted for input on key policies they believed are needed to support integrated early childhood education professional development state systems. The NAEYC blueprint identifies six essential areas of policy for an integrated state early childhood professional development system: professional standards, career pathways, articulation, governance, data, and financing. This Issue Brief includes excerpts from and builds off the NAEYC blueprint and identifies the initial steps governors can take to build a comprehensive early childhood professional development system. (Contains 23 notes.)