In this article, the authors proposed a distillation and matching model (DMM) that describes how evidence-based treatment operations can be conceptualized at a lower order level of analysis than simply by their manuals. Also referred to as the "common elements" approach, this model demonstrates the feasibility of coding and identifying the specific techniques and procedures (e.g., relaxation, exposure, time out) that make up evidence-based protocols for specific problem areas, thereby producing sample aggregate profiles of these procedures. It was shown that evidence-based treatments share the majority of their techniques or "practice elements" in common with each other (e.g., time out is used in Barkley's Defiant Children and Kazdin's Parent Management Training manuals), thus suggesting the notion of "distillation." That is, a large number of evidence-based protocols can be distilled to a smaller number of common elements. Through the identification of common practice elements across evidence-based manuals and the subsequent development of practice element profiles based on client characteristics, the DMM (Chorpita et al., 2005a) provides a means by which practicing clinicians can identify evidence-based treatments. The DMM addresses many potential barriers to dissemination that have hindered the widespread use of evidence-based treatments by practitioners by encouraging the individualization of treatments based on the strengths and needs of the client. At the same time, the DMM does not advocate a deconstructionist approach to manuals, whereby clinicians can provide treatment in a piecemeal fashion, rather, to the extent that the treatment outcome literature allows, DMM is intended to provide initial guidance to practitioners who want to know what works for whom and under which conditions. (Contains 1 figure.)