In FY 2009, the Children's Bureau funded the Center for the Study of Social Policy, in partnership with ZERO TO THREE: National Center for Infants, Toddlers, and Families, and the National Alliance of Children's Trust and Prevention Funds, to create a National Quality Improvement Center on Early Childhood (QIC-EC) focused on child maltreatment prevention. The purpose of the 5-year QIC-EC is to promote knowledge development, knowledge dissemination, and knowledge integration in this area. Knowledge development focuses on program and systems strategies that contribute to the prevention of child maltreatment and to the promotion of increased family strengths and optimal development among infants and young children (birth-5) who are at high-risk for abuse, neglect, and abandonment. Knowledge dissemination is supported by facilitating collaborative information-sharing and problem-solving via a national QIC-EC Learning Network, the Children's Bureau Training and Technical Assistance network, and ongoing relationships with other stakeholders and partners. Knowledge integration is the culmination and desired impact of knowledge development and knowledge dissemination resulting in positive change for families and children and sustainable, systemic change at multiple levels of the child maltreatment prevention field. Integration happens as effective knowledge development and dissemination activities reinforce, support, and then translate new learning into practice and use. This paper contains the following sections: (1) Affirmation of the Need for the QIC-EC; (2) Designing the Delivery and Evaluation of an Intervention; (3) The Overarching Research Question for the R&D Projects; (4) Outcomes, Indicators, Measurement, and Instrumentation; and (5) Introduction to Evaluation Plans. (Contains 1 figure and 6 tables.)