Around the world, there is an increasing focus on the importance of the early years, with growing numbers of countries specifying early learning and development standards. The authors find that differences in country context and pre-primary service delivery influence the content and use of standards documents. Generally, within their documents, countries favor either specifying precise indicators of what children should know and be able to do, or including many elements that guide early education more broadly, such as broad learning goals for children and pedagogical guidance for teachers. Although the standards' documents vary, countries generally use their documents for the purposes of curriculum development, professional development, parent engagement, and national monitoring and evaluation. By using the standards for multiple purposes, early education is better aligned and countries are advancing the integration of their services. Standards have made numerous positive contributions to the early childhood field, but, lacking rigorous outcome evaluations, it is too early to discern the effect of standards on children's performance and learning. The authors recommend that countries devote greater attention to developing their early childhood infrastructure so that the standards documents are more effectively understood, utilized, and evaluated. (author abstract)