Efforts to develop common higher education data standards are expanding both within and across countries. The institutional research (IR) community plays a critical role in assuring that these efforts capture the diverse manifestations of the postsecondary and tertiary education systems and promote responsible comparisons. This chapter provides four narratives related to the development of comparative data systems in the United States, Australia, South Africa, and the European Union. These narratives reveal a range of issues related to the prospects of forming a global, empirically based view of higher education institution (HEI) operations. After presenting these narratives, the authors consider the themes that emerge and their implications for the development of global data standards. (Contains 1 table.)