This article tells the story of the 4-year consensus-building process to design quality standards for the field of family child care. Working with the National Association for Family Child Care, the Family Child Care Project at Wheelock College was funded to create an accreditation system for home-based child care programs using innovative methods to gather information from providers and parents as well as from experts in the field. The author describes conflicts that arose between the values of providers and parents and the research findings, and their resolution; some of the differences that emerged among cultural groups and how the project chose to reconcile differences and reach consensus; and how the quality standards were developed into an accreditation assessment. (author abstract)