Meta modeling is an essential means to systematize, formalize, standardize, integrate, analyze and compare models, techniques, methods and tools. Numerous fields, such as databases, software engineering, software architectures, semantic web, computer-aided tools and method engineering, have benefited from it. The importance of meta modeling is ever increasing along with the emergence of novel approaches, architectures, techniques and languages based on UML and MDA. This paper presents a framework to integrate and compare divergent conceptions of meta modeling in databases, software engineering, and information systems development. The framework is applied to analyze and compare conceptions of meta levels in the literature.