Rural school districts face nearly insurmountable obstacles to implementing the comprehensive special education programs mandated by PL 94-142, Education for All Handicapped Children Act. In order to identify workable strategies for rural special education delivery, a survey was conducted among state and local education agencies in 19 states representing all major economic and cultural groups and geographic regions in the 50 states. Questionnaires were developed to obtain characteristics of the school district, the area served, and the school special education clients; to identify the special education strategies used and their relationship to the main components of PL 94-142 (i.e., least restrictive environment, parent participation, IEPs, and procedural safeguards); and to determine the cost factors of delivery systems. Site visits were made to 14 states; additional information came from telephone interviews. A variety of statistical methods will be used to analyze the survey data, e.g., to determine the factors that contribute to school districts' effective or less-than-effective compliance with PL 94-142. These results will be used as sources of information for three subsequent phases of this study which will develop and disseminate innovative models for training personnel to provide services to handicapped children in a variety of rural subcultures. (JH)