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Countries seeking to educate citizens equipped with the literacy skills needed for skilled jobs in this technological era must provide children from low-income families with center-based preschools that offer substantially stronger support for language and early literacy skills than what is commonplace today. In this chapter we provide evidence from multiple domains to support this proposition. After documenting the shortcomings of our educational system, we argue that the years between 3 and 5 are especially important for long-term development. We substantiate this claim with developmental research from three broad areas:(1) early literacy,(2) social and emotional development, and (3) brain development. Theory and research findings from these areas are reviewed and interpreted as indicating that linguistic, cognitive, and affective domains are all critical to long-term literacy development. These domains are shown to be interrelated, with synergistic interdependencies appearing in the later preschool years that result in increasingly well-orchestrated systems of interrelated linguistic, cognitive, and affective/regulatory abilities. Next we briefly review studies conducted in early childhood classrooms and find that they can play an important role in supporting children’s language development. Unfortunately, other research that has examined interaction in preschool classrooms reveals serious limitations in the extent to which the average classroom that serves low-income children provides optimal support for language. We conclude by discussing some of the steps we see as necessary if we are to significantly improve the ability of classrooms to …