The early experiences of babies and young children have a profound, lasting impact on the rest of their lives. Too many low-income children today are entering kindergarten so far behind that they can never catch up. High-quality childcare, which helps the country's youngest, most disadvantaged children get a good start while enabling their parents to work, holds great untapped potential to increase low-income children's chances for success. By promoting the complementary aims of healthy child development on the one hand and adult responsibility and self-sufficiency on the other, childcare provides a powerful strategy for breaking the cycle of inter generational poverty and advancing opportunity for two generations simultaneously. Since 1909, the federal government has played a crucial leadership role in the nation's efforts to protect and advance the well-being of young children. The policy making legacy of the past 80 years however has left a haphazard collection of fragmented and uncoordinated programs. Today, almost all federal early childhood funds are spent on three major funding programs: Head start, Child Care Development Fund, and childcare expenditures from Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). While these programs fund low-income children's participation in early care and education, they are disconnected and lack coherent purpose. At the state and local levels, integrating these funding streams with growing city-and state-funded early childhood initiatives is difficult at best, and often impossible. Increasingly, the most successful state efforts to address the needs of low-income children and their families are carried out "despite" rather than because of the federal government. Recognizing this, Washington D.C. has launched multiple efforts to help states better integrate fragmented federal programs, and advance state leadership in early childhood.