As states work to meet the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) requirement to follow individuals through the P-20 pipeline and into the workforce by 2011, their progress will be expedited and supported by using the following processes to guide the development and implementation of their cross-agency data sharing efforts: (1) Prioritize, through broad-based stakeholder input, the critical policy questions to drive the development and use of longitudinal data systems; (2) Ensure data systems are interoperable within and across agencies and sectors by adopting common data standards, definitions and language; and (3) Protect personally identifiable information through governance policies and practices that promote the privacy and security of the information while allowing appropriate data access and sharing. This paper further explores the need to have a common P-20/workforce vision and to develop key policy questions to drive the development of state data systems. It also provides a set of resources (appendices) to help states begin this task. Appended are: (1) Data Quality Campaign's 28 Policy Questions; (2) "Killer Questions" Template; (3) South Carolina's Critical Policy Questions; (4) Survey of DQC Partners on Critical Questions for States; and (5) Policy and Practitioner Questions Using Early Childhood Data.