At some point over the next 10 to 12 years, the nation's public school student body will have no one clear racial or ethnic majority. In other words, students of color--students who are not classified as non-Hispanic whites, for purposes of this analysis--will constitute more than half of our primary and secondary students. This demographic trend is already manifest in some of the nation's most populous states, including California and Texas, where the majority of students are students of color. Policymakers are increasingly concerned about the relatively low percentages of teachers of color working in the nation's schools. So researchers at the Center for American Progress set out to study this issue, conducting an analysis of the 2008 Schools and Staffing Survey, or SASS, a nationally representative survey of teachers and principals administered every four years by the National Center for Education Statistics. Part of the issue is that teachers of color are more likely to teach in public schools in urban, high-poverty communities, which often receive less than their fair share of school dollars. Teachers of color also are far less satisfied than white teachers with the way in which their school is run. Findings suggest that the nation needs a two-pronged approach to improving teacher diversity. The nation needs to expand high-quality recruitment programs, for starters, with some of this being done through the alternative certification programs mentioned in this article. There is also a need to do more to improve the professional experience of teachers of color. Teacher workforce by state and race is appended. (Contains 1 table and 12 endnotes.)