In this age of accountability, transparency, and accreditation, colleges and universities increasingly conduct comparative analyses and engage in benchmarking activities. Meant to inform institutional planning and decision making, comparative analyses and benchmarking are employed to let stakeholders know how an institution stacks up against its peers and, more likely, a set of aspirant institutions--those that organizational leaders seek to emulate. This article introduces the topic of comparative analyses and benchmarking. It looks at how to select a comparison group and where to find (and how to access) comparative data. It discusses data sharing consortia and formal data sharing arrangements of various sorts. It draws on the work of Paul Brinkman (1987), Deborah Teeter (1983), Teeter and Brinkman (2003), as well as the volume "Inter-institutional Data Exchange: When to Do It, What to Look for and How to Make It Work" (Fergerson, 1996), published by Jossey-Bass as a part of the "New Directions for Institutional Research" series.