The care and education of young children in the United States is supported by nearly $40 billion yearly from a variety of sources at the federal, state, and local levels. Even so, about a quarter of 4-year-olds and half of 3-year-olds do not attend preschool, and many of those who do attend receive only poor quality services. Some programs are of such low quality that they actually harm child development. The nation's children would greatly benefit from additional public funding for preschool programs. It also matters how this funding is provided. How we fund early care and education varies greatly from program to program, across states, and across levels of government. Most funding sources exist independent of one another, in different departmental jurisdictions and local, state, and federal governments each have their own funding approaches. For these and other reasons, the various streams of public funding are not easily harmonized into a coordinated system for financing early learning programs. This brief reviews sources and models of public financing of early care and education and makes recommendations for improving upon what currently exists so as to remove barriers to increasing program access and quality. (Contains 3 tables and 105 endnotes.)