Drawing on four examples of institutional research undertaken at San Joaquin Delta College (SJDC), this paper offers six principles to help researchers make their work more relevant and to enable decision makers to utilize research more effectively. The research examples provide brief descriptions of the need for, methodology of, and findings of studies on SJDC's impacted nursing program; on faculty salaries; on enrollment projections; and on the role of ethnicity in academic choice and outcome. Among the findings reported are the following: (1) the office of institutional research developed a multi-factor selection procedure for SJDC's impacted nursing program, which placed the heaviest weight on grades and test scores, but added points for minority status; (2) when SJDC was compared to a group of comparable districts, the college ranked first in faculty salaries; (3) between 1988 and 2005, San Joaquin County's population will grow dramatically, and the ethnic composition of the county population will be transformed to a majority minority ethnic distribution; and (4) the actual obtaining of degrees and certificates was found to be tied to ethnicity. The principles offered include that research must be relevant to major policy and management issues; time is of the essence; clarity of presentation is the sine qua non of success; a commitment to the value of research is bedrock; research must be adequately supported; and research must have status and access within the college's organization. (JMC)