Sweeping educational reform has focused on re-structuring without examining the basic qualities that educators bring to the classroom. The present study sought to identify specific teacher qualities associated with exemplary teachers as determined by pre-service educators seeking teacher certification. Also examined were: (1) gender differences in students' perceptions of exemplary "teacher qualities" as well as: (2) exemplary teachers' influences on students' decisions to enter the teaching profession. Education students selected five qualities (from a list of twenty) that best described their exemplary teachers and then ranked them. Analyses of students' surveys revealed that students perceive that their exemplary teachers demonstrate defining personality attributes that outweigh the importance of professional skills. "Enthusiasm" was ranked as the most important quality for males and females. A gender difference emerged in that 41% of the males selected the personality characteristic of "enthusiasm" as a top five descriptor and an equal percentage of males selected "subject knowledge", a professional skill characteristic. No females chose professional skills as their top quality descriptors. Exemplary teachers were reported to positively influence student achievement and pre-service educators' decisions to enter the teaching profession. Implications are discussed in terms of optimizing the teacher education reform movement by addressing specific teacher characteristics. (Contains 2 tables.)