21st century economy demands a broad range of new skills and deeper knowledge in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics to both sustain our existing society and be successful in the future. This imperative must drive our collective school improvement efforts to ensure that every graduate is college and career ready. Teacher quality has been identified as a key contributor to student success (Hanushek, 2010). Though we have the largest pool of teachers ever (Ingersoll, Merrill, and Stuckey, 2014), supply gaps still remain for poor and minority schools, and some special needs populations; we stand far from the goal of having a qualified teacher in every classroom. New federal requirements are being implemented to compel state and local education agencies to make progress toward this important goal. The purpose of this paper is to address the need expressed by many states for innovative state plans (as required by No Child Left Behind and Title I) to address educator equity gaps. The U.S. Department of Education has provided extensive guidance on the components of state plans, the necessary data to help them determine equity gaps, and examples of how various federal pools of funding can be used to implement their plans. However, states remain challenged by the fundamental task of identifying and addressing the "root causes" of the inequitable distribution of qualified teachers across schools and specific student populations. Recently, the Center for Great Teachers and Leaders released an "Equitable Access Toolkit" that provides many resources to help state and local education agencies address this challenge (Center for Great Teachers and Leaders, 2015). This "Solutions" issue suggests a perspective on the educator equity challenge, adapted from recent lessons in business and industry, which can help strengthen the "actionability" of plans by positioning state and local education agencies as the drivers of demand, rather than as victims of teacher supply. In other words, strategically identifying the sources of high quality teachers to meet specific needs, and managing the supply chain that results in those teachers being placed into the right positions, for both short-term and long-term success.