Teacher trainers are key to teacher training. Though there are more or less clear-cut career pathways for teachers, in many countries, this is not the case with teacher educators who can be educational professionals, fully-qualified teachers, professors of education or individuals who have specific qualifications as teacher educators (Montero and Vez,.European Journal of Teacher Education 13:25–34, 1990). While some teacher educators work in higher education institutions, others provide service to national institutes of education or to regional teacher training centres. For some, teacher education is only part of their duties while others work full-time in teacher training. Whereas working conditions differ across institutions, countries and level of qualification, some core beliefs and tasks are quite similar. Against this background, we focus on teacher education at academic levels and question the role and qualifications of teacher educators from a cross-national perspective. For our case study we choose two European countries (Austria, Germany) and two Asian countries (Cambodia, Sri Lanka) which we compare and contrast in the light of teacher educators’ tasks and career pathways. Based on a literature review and empirical findings from a three-year project, (https://contessa-project.eu/) this contribution aims at providing insights into the highly fragmented field of teacher education from the perspective of teacher educators.