The Assessing the Implementation and Cost of High Quality Early Care and Education (ECE-ICHQ) project, funded by the Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation (OPRE) in the Administration for Children and Families, recruited and collected data from ECE centers as part of a five-year measures development project. This brief presents lessons learned from the ECE-ICHQ project that could prove useful in addressing challenges when conducting qualitative research, cost analysis, and self-reported data collection with staff in center-based settings. (author abstract)