High-quality early childhood education (ECE) begins with well-prepared, highly qualified educators. This brief offers practitioners and policymakers an opportunity to learn from promising programs that recruit and prepare racially, ethnically, culturally, and linguistically diverse cohorts of educators to teach in programs serving children birth to age 5 in California--a state that is actively considering investments to further develop its ECE workforce. It provides case studies of three distinct approaches to early educator preparation that offer innovative, affordable pathways for candidates who reflect the communities they serve and identifies their shared features. Building on insights from policies enacted at scale in New Jersey that supported similar initiatives, this brief provides recommendations for policies to better support California's ECE workforce and strengthen its early learning system. (author abstract)