Designed to serve as a standard whereby Michigan work-education councils can gauge their progress and also as a guide to help community leaders in rural areas build work-education council networks, this technical assistance manual provides guidelines for developing work-education councils in rural areas. The role of work-education councils in rural areas, their potential problems and barriers, and their unique aspects are described. Covered next are identifying problems and appropriate strategies to meet them; beginning issues for rural community councils (career education, economic education, institutional dialogue, information brokering, and economic development and employment generation); and building strategies to match goals. Various aspects of council organization are outlined. Discussed next are such aspects of council operation as program development, building a human resource clearinghouse, brokering and maintaining the network both locally and regionally, network communication strategies, organizing community career-related programs and institutional dialogue programs, collaborative placement and employment projects, job generation and economic development, and program evaluation. Future projects and directions for regional collaboration are represented. Appended to the guide are lists of helpful publications on work-education councils and rural issues, work-education projects underway in Michigan, and a national directory of work-education councils. (MN)