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This study, based on interviews with 31 principals, was undertaken in response to quantitative evidence from a larger mixed-methods project that found school leaders' collective efficacy to be a crucial link joining district leadership and conditions to school conditions and student learning. Results of this study suggest that districts contribute to building-level leaders' sense of efficacy by establishing clear, widely shared purposes; awarding priority to the improvement of instruction; and ensuring that teachers and administrators have access to appropriate amounts of meaningful professional development aimed at developing the capacities needed to achieve the shared purposes. This study is part of a larger mixed-methods Wallace Foundationfunded project aimed at better understanding how successful leadership affects student learning. Because most leadership effects are indirect, our task is to discover those links in the chain connecting state, district, and school leadership to student learning. The qualitative study reported in this article was undertaken in direct response to quantitative evidence from our larger project suggesting that building-level leaders' collective efficacy is a crucial link joining district leadership and organizational conditions to school conditions and student learning (Leithwood & Jantzi, 2006). That evidence was provided by 96 principal and 2,764 teacher respondents to two separate surveys, along with state-collected student achievement data in language and math averaged over 3 years. Path analytic techniques were used to inquire about the causes and consequences of leader efficacy.

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