Quality comes in different forms but the general idea here is to understand how the anchor text for the backlinks is constructed within the backlink analysis of the top 3. I personally only tend to bother with the top 3 given thats where I want to be - anything else is not relevant.
So, whom of the top 3 are optimising their backlinks for the specific term you are looking to beat and what quality are they?(i.e. outbound links, PR and relevancy) - there are several tools which will help you with this notably market samurai. If you are comfortable you can obtain the same amount plus around 10-20% more for the top ranking site (or as is the case much of the time, lesser amounts just much better quality) you will outrank them.
Simple, subject to good onpage seo and other factors of course.