Despite great need, potential, and opportunity, progress along the IPM continuum remains slow and major new resistance-related pest problems loom on the horizon. With a few exceptions across the country, the role of land grant universities in driving pest management system innovation remains limited. Given the meager federal funding for IPM research and education programs, there is no reason to believe that USDA dollars are going to play a major role in advancing field-level IPM implementation, beyond the handful of reasonably well funded projects the Department is supporting at any given time. So how might a chronically under-funded network of national IPM Centers break the logjam? By shifting the focus to hard-edged evaluation of the economic, environmental and public-health consequences of IPM system choices. Broke down, high risk, far too costly pest management technologies have gotten what amounts to a "free pass" for far too long. The majority of consumers and many players in the food and fiber system want to reward farmers moving in the "right" direction, but that direction remains obscure, too often lost in fuzzy claims and counter-claims over the performance of pest management systems. If IPM centers can shine a light on pest management systems that are delivering significant benefits in contrast to systems that are struggling and resulting in recurrent collateral damage, market-based support for farmer-driven IPM innovation will surely expand and over time could become significant enough to underwrite the kind of sea-change that remains needed in much of the world of pest management.