Collaboration among stakeholders in the early childhood education (ECE) field is often upheld as a goal--and with good reason: It promotes effective, sustainable policymaking, creates consistency, reduces redundancy, and fills gaps across local, state, and national systems, policies, and infrastructure. Yet the obstacles to collaboration are persistent and pervasive, particularly between stakeholders with divergent perspectives and levels of engagement and responsibility. We experienced some of these challenges when we--as representatives of the National Association of State Boards of Education (NASBE), the National League of Cities (NLC), and the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC)--came together to advance the ECE workforce. However, we also found that facilitated collaboration between often isolated stakeholders can result in meaningful change that puts a coordinated system within reach. This aligning and sequencing of work, so that each participating organization operates in a way that works best for their areas of jurisdiction and authority, requires shared understanding of each stakeholder's role and support so each stakeholder can play that role from a position of strength. (author abstract)