The study of planets outside our solar system has advanced by leaps and bounds in the last decade. Nearly 350 planets are known outside the solar system. Even spectra of transiting hotJupiters have been measured. Our ability to measure the flux and spectra of transiting planets is ultimately limited by a combination of the shot-noise and the spectra-photometric stability of the star. When the star-planet flux ratio exceeds a million, we will need to use coronagraphic and interferometric techniques that spatially separate the starlight from the planet light. An Earth twin is about 10 billion times fainter than the Sun, when viewed from outside the solar system. All coronagraphs have a so-called “inner working angle”, IWA. Planets inside the IWA are not observable. Often the number of habitable Earths that a coronagraphic mission can detect is calculated by the number of stars where the maximum star-planet separation is equal to or greater than the IWA, where the habitable planet is 1 AU*sqrt(luminosity) from the star. This simplistic view can overestimate the number of viable targets by as much as a factor of 4 to 8. Direct imaging of an exo-Earth can be used to measure a number of important planetary parameters, 1) planetary orbit, is it in the habitable zone? 2) planet flux versus orbital phase, is the planet a Lambertian scatterer? 3) spectra of its atmosphere in the visible and Near IR, is there oxygen or water in the atmosphere? and 4) possible seasonal changes in albedo, and spectra. If the IWA is 2X smaller, on average we will be able to detect earth-like planets around stars twice as far away, or roughly an 8 fold increase in the number of targets. But if we need to be able to observe the planet over a large part of its orbit and we need the maximum star-planet separation to be twice the IWA, we’ve just reduced our list of potential targets by a factor of 8. This white paper examines in more detail what science is possible as a function of the max-star-earth/IWA ratio.