Water and wastewater utilities across the country are facing many common challenges, including rising costs, aging infrastructure, increasingly stringent regulatory requirements, population changes, and a rapidly changing workforce. Effective utility management can help utilities respond to both current and future challenges and support utilities in their common mission of being successful 21st century service providers. Based on these challenges, EPA and six national water and wastewater associations signed an historic agreement in 2007 to jointly promote effective utility management based on the Ten Attributes of Effectively Managed Water Sector Utilities and five Keys to Management Success. This Primer is an outgrowth of that agreement and distills the experience of a group of leaders in water and wastewater utility management into a framework intended to help utility managers identify and address their most pressing needs through a customized, incremental approach that is relevant to the day-to-day challenges utilities face. In the future, the Collaborating Organizations will continue to work collectively and individually to implement a range of short-term and long-term actions designed to promote and recognize excellence in utility management based on the principles and practices described in the Primer throughout the water sector.