Differences in the practices and beliefs of successful principals emerged from the case study findings both within and across countries. Key differences were found to relate to the demographic and socio-economic contexts of the schools themselves, the socio-cultural lenses that guide educational practice across nations and sites, as well as the external criteria used to define and evaluate success in these different contexts.  
Using case study data from the eight nations in the ISSPP, this paper explores differences in country specific social history and cultural values and school specific socio-economic contexts, and then the extent to which these ‘moderating’ factors impact the ways that principals achieved and sustained their success in these different countries.   The authors will use cases from their home country as exemplars of contextual clusters that formed patterned differences among countries, e.g., while principal practices and beliefs in teamwork in Norway had much in common with those in Sweden and Denmark, collectively they differed from those found in the US, Canada, England and Australia, which in turn, differed from those found in China.  These clustered themes form the centrepiece of our analysis