Technical Abstract: This is an invited paper from the editor-in-chief of International Journal for Parasitology who requested a Current Opinion manuscript to discuss the status of anti-cattle tick vaccine research. Arguably the world's most significant arthropod pest of cattle, control of the cattle tick, Rhipicephalus microplus, is critical to maximize the animal health status of cattle both in large production operations and small family farms. Pesticide resistance has developed in most regions where R. microplus thrives and the demand for alternatives has driven a surge in interest to develop and implement an anti-cattle tick vaccine-based control strategy. Several research groups have ongoing projects to develop and evaluate their antigens of choice and we present a short review of these projects and offer our opinion on what constitutes a good target antigen and vaccine and what might influence the market success of candidate vaccines.