This report offers practitioners and policymakers an opportunity to learn from promising programs that recruit and prepare diverse cohorts of educators to teach in programs serving children birth to age 5 in California--a state that is actively considering investments to develop its ECE workforce. It provides case studies of three distinct approaches to early educator preparation that offer innovative, affordable pathways to preparation for diverse candidates: the Family Child Care Apprenticeship program; the Education/Child Development Program at Skyline College, a traditional community college; and EDvance, a pathway preparation program at San Francisco State University that supports students earning a B.A. in ECE. The report identifies shared features of these approaches and, building on insights from policies enacted at scale in New Jersey that supported similar initiatives, outlines recommendations for policies to better support the ECE workforce and ultimately strengthen early learning systems. (author abstract)