This policy brief describes the components of a computer model to compare different financing approaches for universal early care and education programs as developed by the Financing Universal Early Care and Education (ECE) for America's Children Project. The brief also discusses lessons learned from analyzing key features of existing near-universal social benefits in the United States, and how they might be applied to ECE. The brief argues that if early care and education in the United States is to be transformed to meet children's needs, it must be financed not solely as assistance to low-income families but as a universal or near-universal social benefit in which middle income and affluent households have a stake. The micro-simulation model has four components or modules: (1) unit cost module calculating changes in the costs of ECE as a result of changing the staff's qualifications and compensation, improving the regulatory structure, and creating an appropriate governance structure; (2) financing module, calculating the amount of ECE assistance for which each household is eligible; (3) demand module, predicting changes in households' demand for ECE; and (4) the cost aggregation module, summing up the number of eligible and participating children and the costs to each payer for all households in the data set. The features common to near-universal social benefits in the United States include a mixture of public and private revenue sources and incentives, a combination of multiple financing mechanisms, a mixture of service providers, and a major public agency responsible for administering some or all benefits and revenues, and for tracking who is or is not served. Immediate application to ECE involves the use of multiple revenue sources and continued advocacy to ensure equity. Major tradeoffs include coverage versus cost and cost versus quality. The brief concludes by noting that the project will be generating detailed estimates of numbers of children served under different funding policies to better inform the policy debate related to universal financing of early care and education. (Contains 13 references.) (KB)