In Australia, many quality sets of standards for school leaders have been developed. However, they are not profession-wide and are specific to employing authorities. A recent review explored approaches to standards for prospective and established school leaders and options for a national system for assessment against those standards. This article is based on the project, commissioned by Teaching Australia in 2005 and undertaken by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER). ACER's review analysed five existing systems (Western Australia, England, the Netherlands, Scotland and the USA) and considered such issues as: how might standards best be developed? How did the systems under review ensure that school leaders took the initiative in using the standards to guide their professional learning and to receive feedback about their practice in relation to the standards? What approaches were adopted to judge whether the standards had been met? Is it possible to devise a professional certification model that would involve the profession at every level of operation and create the greatest sense of ownership?