Community-Based Independent Living Skills Training for Severely Handicapped Youth is a project of the Minneapolis (Minnesota) Public Schools designed to enhance community training opportunities for individuals aged 16-21. Key issues in program development included: treatment of students as unique individuals, assessments and curricula organized around functional life skills, full use of the community as a training environment, integrated learning experiences with nonhandicapped individuals, small group and individual instruction, leadership from community agencies, family involvement in educational decision-making, and consideration of the students' postschool employment and community-living plans. The program development process focused on establishing a workable program philosophy, assessing the student, designing and developing community-based instructional programs, assessing the community, and training in the community. Appendices contain: a description of the subscales for scales of independent behavior, examples of informal assessment procedures, a functional curriculum checklist, a student 5-year plan, a sample training agreement between the student and the training agency, and descriptions of approximately 30 selected training sites in Minneapolis. (Author/JDD)