The profession of educational leadership in the 21st century is changing. School leaders, educational administration faculty, and policymakers are endeavoring to redefine the profession in an era of ferment, during which the legitimacy of its knowledge base and the appropriateness of programs for preparing school leaders have been thrown into question: (1) Who will lead America's schools?; (2) What theories and practices of leadership work best to turn low-performing schools into high-performing learning communities?; and (3) Innovative answers to these vital questions are being explored across the country by researchers and educators alike. It is crucial that ideas about reshaping educational leadership--such as those examined in the NSSE volume--be connected to practice. The volume's authors emphasize that more research needs to be done to study new approaches to leadership and to translate findings from current and continuing research into practice on a broader scale. Clearly, as educational leadership changes in response to emerging trends in school reform and the contexts of schooling, new understandings of effective leadership will emerge that should be shared among all stakeholders in education. Articles in this issue of "The LSS Review" include: (1) Educational Leadership: Reports and Recommendations From a National Invitational Conference (Joseph Murphy, JoAnn B. Manning, and Herbert J. Walberg); (2) Redefining Educational Leadership: Next-Step Recommendations (Joseph Murphy, JoAnn B. Manning, and Herbert J. Walberg); (3) Understanding the Evolving Concept of Leadership in Education: Roles, Expectations, and Dilemmas (Ellen Goldring and William D. Greenfield, Jr.); (4) Understanding the Challenges of School and District Leadership at the Dawn of a New Century (Catherine A. Lugg, Katrina Bulkley, William A. Firestone, and C. William Garner); (5) Unpacking the Challenges of Leadership at the School and District Level (Kenneth Leithwood and Nona Prestine); (6) Reculturing the Profession of Educational Leadership: New Blueprints (Joseph Murphy); (7) School Improvement Process and Practices: Professional Learning for Building Instructional Capacity (James P. Spillane and Karen Seashore Louis); (8) Leadership for Democratic Community in Schools (Gail C. Furman and Robert J. Starratt); (9) Leadership for Social Justice (Colleen L. Larson and Khaula Murtadha); (10) Exploring New Approaches to Teacher Leadership for School Improvement (Mark A. Smylie, Sharon Conley, and Helen M. Marks); (11) Reshaping the Role of the School Principal (Gary M. Crow, Charles S. Hausman, and Jay Paredes Scribner); (12) Shifts in the Discourse Defining the Superintendency: Historical and Current Foundations of the Position (C. Cryss Brunner, Margaret Grogan, and Lars Bjork); (13) Repositioning Lay Leadership Policymaking and Democratic Deliberation (Sharon F. Rallis, Mark R. Shibles, and Austin D. Swanson); (14) Preparing School Leaders for School Improvement, Social Justice, and Community (Diana Pounder, Ulrich C. Reitzug, and Michelle D. Young); and (15) Rethinking the Professional Development of School Leaders (Frances K. Kochan, Paul Bredeson, and Carolyn Riehl). ["The LSS Review" is a product of the Mid-Atlantic Regional Educational Laboratory, the Laboratory for Student Success (LSS), one of ten regional educational laboratories funded by the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) of the U.S. Department of Education.]