A principal's job, first and foremost, is to diagnose their school's needs and match them to effective principal actions and school practices that drive student success. Successful principals use their diagnosis to build an action plan that pushes their school--and student achievement--to the next level. New Leaders developed the Urban Excellence Framework [TM] to understand exactly what schools achieving dramatic gains are doing and to share that knowledge throughout its community of leaders. The Urban Excellence Framework focuses on "five categories" of school practices. Among them are two primary drivers of student achievement: rigorous, goal and data-driven "learning and teaching" and achievement and belief-based school-wide "culture". Two additional categories of a principal's work are essential to supporting these drivers: building and managing a high-quality "aligned staff" to the school's vision and instituting "operations and systems" to put the vision into place. Undergirding all of these categories is the "personal leadership" modeled by a principal who sets the tone for all student and adult relationships and practices in the school.