The purpose of this paper is to provide background for consideration of strategies to promote women?s leadership. It analyzes the state of women?s leadership in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), identifies the central obstacles to women accessing greater power, and concludes with a discussion of pertinent policy issues. The study is based on bibliographic research performed in the United States and was conducted within a short period of time, which has imposed regrettable, yet inevitable, limitations on the study?s scope and depth. Information on some countries or time periods is missing because data were not readily available.