We explore observations and models of the interacting, cyclical behavior of the active regions and the polar magnetic fields of the Sun. We focus on observational evidence of these fields interacting across the corridor between active and polar latitudes. We present observations of diverse magnetic signatures on, above and beneath the solar surface, and find much evidence of phenomena migrating in both directions across this corridor in each hemisphere, including photospheric fields, ephemeral bipoles, interior torsional oscillations, high-latitude filaments, and coronal green line intensity. Together these observations produce a complex physical picture of high-latitude solar magnetic field evolution in the photosphere, atmosphere and interior, and demonstrate their essential role in the solar cycle. The picture presented by these collected observations is consistent with the Babcock-Leighton phenomenological model for the cycle, and we discuss related efforts to predict cycle amplitudes based on polar field strengths and on combining activity and polar-field information in a single phase-independent, slowly-evolving index. We also briefly review related work on magnetic flux transport models for the solar cycle, with particular reference to the interaction between flux emergence patterns and meridional flows.