State reforms and philanthropic investments seeking to improve public education in California have made substantial changes in recent years--from what students learn and how they learn it to how schools are funded and evaluated. Most efforts have focused on one level at a time, either K-12 schools, community colleges, or four-year postsecondary institutions, as each of these state systems is vast and complex, with completely separate funding and governance. But while recent reforms have affected every phase of a student's education from kindergarten to college, this fragmented approach has resulted in little progress toward what many consider the ultimate goal: creating smoother transitions from one level to the next to help more young people complete high school on time, attain a postsecondary credential with labor market value, and succeed in the workforce. Strong leaders are the key to unifying multiple competing efforts to increase student success. This brief examines how to develop the leadership qualities that helped transform loose collections of programs in California into high-performing regional systems. It is based on individual interviews with 11 leaders from Linked Learning Regional Hubs of Excellence.