A number of states are considering policy proposals to update credential or degree requirements for early educators. Practitioners, policy experts, and researchers have expressed concern, however, that well-intentioned policies to raise educator qualifications without sufficient supports may have negative consequences for the adequacy; stability; and racial, ethnic, cultural, and linguistic diversity of the early childhood education (ECE) workforce and may result in a shortage of educators. Early educators enrolled in higher education often encounter challenges paying for school and balancing school, work, and family commitments. Higher education processes and systems are complex and difficult for educators to efficiently navigate. In many states, educator qualifications vary by ECE program and are not based on a coherent career ladder, creating barriers for educators seeking to advance. College students of color and students from low-income households are disproportionately likely to encounter these challenges. Furthermore, many of the programs in which educators enroll do not focus specifically on preparing students for teaching, and many do not require supervised student teaching despite broad acceptance of clinical practice as an element of high-quality teacher preparation. This report offers practitioners and policymakers an opportunity to learn from promising programs that recruit and prepare diverse cohorts of educators to teach in programs serving children birth to age 5 in California--a state that is actively considering investments to develop its ECE workforce. It provides case studies of three distinct approaches to early educator preparation that offer innovative, affordable pathways to preparation for diverse candidates: the Family Child Care Apprenticeship program; the Education/Child Development Program at Skyline College, a traditional community college; and EDvance, a pathway preparation program at San Francisco State University that supports students earning a B.A. in ECE. The report identifies shared features of these approaches and, building on insights from policies enacted at scale in New Jersey that supported similar initiatives, outlines recommendations for policies to better support the ECE workforce and ultimately strengthen early learning systems. [For the research brief, see ED603416.]