A number of factors put pressure on schools to work more closely with health, social service, and other youth-serving institutions but poor communications, program redundancies, fear for job security, and concerns about parent and community support for controversial services inhibit close collaboration. Recent successful collaborative school, health, and social service programs at the federal and local level have renewed interest in school-human services linkages. Schools are the natural focus for combined services because every child must attend school, but school organization proves problematic for service professionals. Most efforts at improving collaboration have focused on improving bureaucratic cooperation. The following characteristics are associated with successful locally developed programs. They: (1) offer a wide array of direct services or serve as entry to those comprehensive services; (2) move beyond crisis management and early intervention and focus on prevention and development; (3) cross professional and bureaucratic boundaries; (4) provide staff time, training, and skills needed to build relationships of trust and respect; (5) hire a staff member from the local community to serve as a facilitator; (6) involve both parents and teachers in communications; (7) deal with the child as part of a family, and the family as part of the community; and (8) provide accountability, with creative and meaningful measures. Because collaborations still focus on bureaucracies, integrated youth policies must be developed that focus on the individual needs of the student. (FMW)