This paper reports on the factors that characterize high-utilization evaluations. It is based on materials submitted to an American Educational Research Association (AERA) Division H competition for outstanding examples of evaluation utilization. The paper is organized into three sections. The first section outlines the background of the study: the purposes and procedures of the Division H competition, and the conceptual framework used in analyzing the data. The second section describes the analytic methods used, summarizes the results of the analysis, and specifies the six factors that seem to distinguish evaluations whose results are used by decision-makers. These factors are: level of evaluator effort, evaluator's leadership behavior, user involvement, evaluation reporting, evaluator involvement in implementing recommendations, and user commitment to use. The final section profiles the evaluators themselves. The data are viewed and interpreted from a multidisciplinary perspective which draws upon theories from psychology, sociology, organizational behavior, management, and marketing. (BW)