This is something that's going to depend on the song, the drum tracks etc. Many layers of small amounts of compression is often better than one compressor doing the whole job, again, depending on the source material and the end result desired. Parallel compression is your best pal when it comes to drums IMHO because you can bring up the sound of the drums without messing with the attack of the original tracks.
Depending on whether I am editing an actual played in a room drum kit(not samples IOW) there is more likelihood of there being multiple compressors, especially when I am stuck as the drummer cause I'm a guitarist first so consistent playing is not my forte.
If you are using samples, which I occasionally do, or drum replacement software with samples, I find that there is not as much dynamic range therefore less need for much compression. In those cases I like to use a character compressor and some kind of exciter/harmonics generator plugins on aux buses to give life to the samples and "dirty" em up a little. I like the Vertigo VSC2 for this among others. Sansamp and Aphex can be great to add some harmonics and transient energy on an aux too.
I would recommend getting some commercial tracks that are similar to the genre you are mixing for to pull into your songs for a comparison of what the "standard" for your particular music is then work from there. You don't want to end up with Metal sounding drums on a Western Swing track or vice-versa, and reference tracks can help keep things in line.