The purpose of this study was to examine the perspectives of key policy informants on the factors that they believed influence policy decisions in literacy education. Participants were selected because they had significantly influenced, or had attempted to influence, policy decisions in literacy at either the national or state level. Semistructured interviews were conducted with seven key informants and four nominated informants. An inductive data analysis revealed five broad domains that addressed the participants' perspective on factors of influence: literacy professionals, public sentiment, selected policy participants, conservative voices, and research.