This paper discusses how networks of elderly people change with stages of disability. Senior citizens in 80 nursing homes (40 in New York and 40 in Florida) were interviewed. The authors examine how spouses, relatives, neighbors, friends, and acquaintances help out when the elderly are robust, how these patterns of help change when the elderly become ill but still live in the community, and how, these patterns change when the elderly become institutionalized. The authors then show that the seemingly endless possibilities can be ordered and anticipated by the application of general sociological principles of the relationship of group structure to group tasks. The same principles can then be used by policy makers to evaluate and shape policy on "natural support systems" for the aged. (Author/RM)