In November 2014, Congress reauthorized the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG), the major federal child care program, for the first time since 1996. This reauthorization presents a promising opportunity for states to help families access safe, reliable, affordable child care that allows parents to work and promotes children's healthy growth and development. The legislation includes critical provisions to ensure the health and safety of children in child care settings, improve the quality of care, and make it easier for families to get and keep child care assistance--strengthening its dual roles as both a major early childhood education program and a work support for low-income families. By giving states more flexibility to structure policies around the needs of children and families, the reauthorization also makes it easier to link the child care assistance program to other programs, including other early childhood education programs and additional supports for families. To take advantage of the opportunity offered by the reauthorization, and fulfill the goals of the legislation, states will need to be strategic and thoughtful about implementation, including paying careful attention to resources. States should: Determine their broader goals in implementing the new law; Identify the full set of changes they need to make to their current policies to meet those goals; and Assess the financial and other resources necessary to overcome the gap between their current policies and their goals for the implementation. A piecemeal approach to implementation that lacks a clear vision could result in policy decisions that do not add up to meaningful change for families--or worse, could result in states making tradeoffs that harm families by, for example, shifting resources to comply with the law in a way that causes children and their families to lose child care assistance. This guide suggests strategies for maximizing the opportunities presented by the law and minimizing negative consequences. In addition, the guide demonstrates how additional resources can enable states to realize the full potential of the law for helping children and families. (author abstract)