The invention relates to plant transcription factor polypeptides, polynucleotides that encode them, homologs from a variety of plant species, variants of naturally-occurring sequences, and methods of using the polynucleotides and polypeptides to produce transgenic plants having advantageous properties, including improved cold and other osmotic stress tolerance, as compared to wild-type or reference plants. The invention also pertains to expression systems that may be used to regulate these transcription factor polynucleotides, providing constitutive, transient, inducible and tissue-specific regulation.