There is a growing movement in the early childhood advocacy community to address the dual problems of quality and compensation by turning to a credential with a much different track record: the bachelor's degree. The B.A. is already the foundational degree for K-12 educators, after all, and people who have bachelor's degrees earn much more than those who don't. Laws to mandate degrees for pre-K teachers are on the books in a growing number of states. Unfortunately, the bachelor's degree has its own set of major flaws. It is increasingly expensive and difficult to acquire. There is little research to suggest it actually makes early childhood educators better at their jobs. The colleges that provide the B.A. have an abysmal track record in serving first-generation, working, and minority students--the very students who make up a large share of the early childhood workforce. An entirely new approach is needed. It would not be a single credential at all, but a constellation of valuable, portable, interlocking credentials created by a whole new set of educational actors. These new institutions would be built from the ground up to provide exactly what early childhood educators need, when and how they need it. They would be flexible, outcomes-focused, and grounded in the latest research. The students who attend these institutions would learn and earn much more. This report describes these new institutions as "charter colleges of early childhood education." It then explains why they are needed and how they can be built. (Contains 53 endnotes.) [This paper was written with the assistance of Bruce Fuller, John Gasko, William Gormley, Bridget Hamre, Ron Haskins, Rick Hess, Linda Jacobson, Susan Landry, and Marcy Whitebook. For the accompanying report, "Beyond Bachelor's: The Case for Charter Colleges of Early Childhood Education," see ED523286.]