Across the US, elected officials at the national and state level, have discussed the need to improve higher education, usually pointing to concerns over student outcomes (such as graduation rates) and issues related to college costs (tuition, debt).  Many of these conversations have resulted in the adoption of incentive-based policies that tie financial support to the outcomes of interest.  However, the research on the effectiveness of these policies finds that many of these accountability efforts lead to minimal gains and often no gains at all.  This study uses the recent push for "accountability" in public higher education to examine the factors that contribute to whether performance regimes are effective.  Findings suggest that the success of performance-based accountability is a function of the process by which these policies were designed, and the extent to which campus leaders and state policymakers have shared preferences about the legitimacy and importance of various indicators of performance.