As of August 2010, a total of 33 states, school districts, charter school coalitions, and other education organizations had received Teacher Incentive Funds (TIF) to redesign compensation programs for teachers and principals. The U.S. Department of Education named a new cohort of TIF grantees on September 23, 2010. TIF grantees have faced a number of challenges as they have worked to design and implement new educator pay programs. Among the most demanding challenges has been developing a targeted set of metrics around available and manageable data. Grantees use these metrics to measure teacher or principal effectiveness and assign pay. Recently, grantees have made it a priority to sustain operation programs once their federal funding expires. TIF grantees have also found, often belatedly and unexpectedly, that effective stakeholder engagement and communication are challenging and essential to the success of their pay programs. Stakeholder engagement helps to create buy-in and initial acceptance of the TIF plan. It allows different voices and perspectives to be heard and recognized as new approaches to compensation develop. Communication provides the synergy to broaden buy-in and sustain support for the program. This paper describes the ways in which TIF grantees have approached stakeholder engagement. It is based on data from multiple sources, including TIF program monitoring reports, Center for Educator Compensation Reform (CECR) technical assistance notes, grantees' internal and external evaluations, and interviews with selected grantees. The author reviewed and analyzed these data with an eye toward shedding light on the following issues: (1) What stakeholder engagement and communication challenges have TIF grantees faced?; (2) What kinds of technical assistance did grantees seek and from whom?; and (3) What lessons can grantees learn about engagement and communication strategies? Throughout, the paper uses named grantees in describing examples of engagement and communication efforts. A few examples also use non-TIF sites that have developed innovative new compensation programs. Wherever examples appear, they are meant to be illustrative, not exhaustive. A list of data sources is included. (Contains 7 footnotes.