This research brief examines these questions in Massachusetts, particularly in greater Boston, where a variety of public, non-profit, and for-profit actors and entities have long been at the forefront of efforts to build well-designed affordable housing. To do so, it draws on three sources of information: (1) a careful review of the guidelines used to allocate the state’s annual allotment of federal Low-Income Housing Tax Credits (LIHTC), a key funding source for affordable housing; (2) interviews with 18 leading local experts in the field, a group that included non-profit and for-profit developers, architects, and several current and former public officials; and (3) observations and discussions at the Affordable Housing Design Leadership Institute (AHDLI), an annual event organized by Enterprise Community Partners that brings together non-profit developers and design professionals to discuss how to improve the design of proposed affordable housing projects. However, the research effort did not attempt to define “design excellence,” which can be a very subjective assessment. Instead, the research focused on whether and how key actors and processes assessed the design quality of affordable housing developments. Since the passage of the Housing Act of 1949, the U.S. federal government has had a stated policy goal of providing “a decent home and a suitable living environment for every American family.” Over the subsequent decades, federal, state, and local policymakers have used a variety of strategies to try to achieve this goal for low-income people. These have ranged from publicly funded and managed public housing projects to the provision of tax credits that not-for-profit and for-profit entities can use (or sell) to fund new affordable housing units.