America's most highly qualified teachers are underrepresented in America's most challenging schools. Across the nation, only about 15% of America's expert teachers teach in high-poverty, underachieving schools. Most expert teachers teach in schools with fewer racial minority students, fewer students from low-income households, and fewer students who are English-language learners. And they teach in schools with smaller than average student/teacher ratios. Teacher quality is the biggest school-level factor related to the success or failure of students in hard-to-staff schools. To improve substandard levels of student achievement, more expert teachers must be recruited to teach in these schools. Because these schools are hard to staff, policies must be devised to attract expert teachers to them and then to retain those teachers. In addition, the voices of expert teachers should be heard loud and clear when such policy debates occur. Expert teachers have been officially distinguished and validated as experts, so it is of utmost importance to hear and act on what they have to say about why they do not teach in high-needs schools and what might convince them to do so. To explore these issues, the author surveys the most highly qualified teachers in the state of Arizona to understand their job-related preferences and the policy changes it would take to recruit them into hard-to-staff schools and then to retain them. These teachers included National Board Certified teachers, teachers recognized for having extraordinary success in teaching students in high-needs schools, and teachers named Teacher of the Year or Ambassador of the Year. (Contains 10 endnotes.)