The U.S. Department of Education Teacher Incentive Fund (TIF) seeks to transform education compensation systems so that principal and teacher performance (measured through classroom productivity measures) connects to compensation. Classroom-level productivity measures require robust student-teacher linkage data. Organizations such as the Value-Added Research Center, the Data Quality Campaign, and Battelle for Kids have recently been paying a great deal of attention to data quality. This paper presents findings from an exploratory study of eight TIF grantees and discusses how they acquired, verified, and managed their student-teacher linkage data through system development. Findings suggest that (a) grantees have multiple avenues for linkage data acquisition, and (b) all TIF grantees must devote considerable effort to verifying the validity of student-teacher linkage data. Furthermore, most of the TIF grantees included in this study are making progress in system development. This paper summarizes findings as a series of six lessons learned that may inform future and on-going compensation reform projects. A bibliography is included. (Contains 2 tables and 2 footnotes.)