This discussion focuses on a research project designed to identify critical leadership behaviors and characteristics of very successful elementary school principals. The project which ultimately became a book published jointly by the National Association of Elementary School Principals and Corwin Press used research methodology inspired by Collins' work (2001) to analyze a series of intensive conversations with six highly successful principals. The goal was to find out more about what superstar principals do well. The purposes of the project were to gain insights in order to improve educational leadership programs and to shed light on the type of preparation that makes a great school administrator. Open-ended qualitative interviews were used to identify recurrent patterns as described by Merriam (1998). The discussion concludes with a summary of implications of this research for improvement of educational leadership programs.