A critical issue is the role of the educational leader in closing the achievement gap in literacy between students living in poverty and those who are not. Not all students are given the same opportunity to be successful in school (Jacobson, 2011; Krashen, 2011). Poverty often means lower scores on all measures of school achievement (Krashen, 2011; White, 1982). Educators must help to defend children against the effects of poverty (Berliner, 2009). The researcher proposed to conduct comparative case studies and interviews in low socioeconomic status (SES) schools where students have demonstrated high literacy achievement. She was interested in investigating the leadership characteristics and practices and closing the achievement gap in literacy for low socioeconomic (SES) students in these schools to determine if there are commonalities across the schools and if they align with the literature on leadership and low SES students' literacy success. The findings in this study are presented as the result of qualitative data analyses and triangulation. The data was collected using central office leader and principal interviews, teacher focus groups, and guided tour observations and triangulated to ensure validity in the case findings. A cross-case comparison was completed after collecting and analyzing data for each school regarding several leadership characteristics and practices that impact student achievement in literacy for students who attend low SES, high-performing elementary schools. Each of the interview questions, teacher focus group questions, and guided tour observation protocol indicators were based on current literature regarding effective school leadership characteristics and practices that impact low SES students' literacy achievement in low SES, high-performing schools. The major findings for Research Question 1 and 2 were the practices the principals demonstrated as part of the three leadership characteristic: instructional leadership, distributive leadership, and transformational leadership. Within the characteristics of instructional leadership, the practices demonstrated were: monitoring the school's literacy achievement performance through literacy walks, professional development and collaboration that are data-driven and based on students literacy needs and teachers' needs to provide research-based literacy strategies for improving students' literacy achievement: scheduling time for extended literacy instruction and literacy intervention with literacy across the content as the school-wide priority; and modeling high expectations that all students can learn; being the lead learner in the school. Within the characteristics of distributive leadership, the practices demonstrated were: having a willingness to share leadership decision making and responsibilities; and building leadership capacity in teachers and staff. Within the characteristic of transformational leadership, the practices demonstrated were: a clear and focused vision on student performance and literacy achievement; providing needed professional development; viewing that change is a process; and having positive relationship with teachers, students, and parents with regular communication. A major finding for Research Question 3 was that the identified leadership characteristics and practices were aligned with the ISLLC Standards 2-3 and the PSEL Standard 4. At the same time, the researcher found that the study aligned with other PSEL standards including but not limited to: PSEL Standard 1, PSEL Standard 7, and PSEL Standard 10. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]