Underlying the current debate over the proposed Department of Homeland Security is a shared understanding that our domestic security hinges on the present and future quality of the new Department’s workforce. The urgent need for better workforce management tools springs not only from the critical nature of the new Department’s mission, but also from the daunting recruitment and retention environment that the new Department will face in the economy of the 21st century. The remainder of the report details the successes that government agencies have already enjoyed in using experimental flexibilities to meet those challenges and the Partnership’s recommendations based on that history and its own research.