When children are young, the activities and routines in which they participate are influenced by family decisions as well as by opportunities for participation. Families report that finding community opportunities for their young children with disabilities can be difficult. Furthermore, ensuring their children's success in these settings requires more planning, coordination, and time than when children do not have disabilities. The reauthorization of IDEA (1997), and specifically Part C of the Act (i.e., the infant/toddler program), emphasized the requirement that early intervention services be provided within the natural environments of the child and family. This article presents a series of steps and strategies to be used by an early intervention team providing services in a child's natural settings and to provide these services with a focus on active participation in a range of individually appropriate settings. In order to maximize a child's participation in the activities and routines of various settings, the team collaborates with the family to establish a participation-based philosophy and implements this philosophy by completing three steps: (1) a "natural environments framework" to find out about family routines and activities, decide which routines and activities to address, and plan interventions to promote participation; (2) an "adaptation hierarchy" to guide decisions and generate ways of promoting participation and learning; and (3) a generic plan of strategies to address children's functional needs. Each of these steps is described in this article and illustrated through a vignette of a child with cerebral palsy.(Contains 2 tables and 1 figure.)