The purpose of the study was to describe research leaders' perceptions of the relative importance of various research preparation opportunities for future music education professors. The 122 questionnaire respondents answered 38 Likert-type and open-ended content questions that asked about research experiences, research skills, research resources, and research coursework. The highest rated research experience was having each doctoral student do an oral presentation of his or her research, the highest rated research skill was the ability to choose an important research question for a study, the highest rated research resource was SPSS, and the most common response for what coursework should be required for doctoral students was a basic course that introduced the students to research concepts. Conclusions address the possible programmatic applications of the results.