The current efforts of the Association of American Medical Colleges to test the feasibility of broadening the application, utility, and scope of the cost-finding studies conducted by many academic health centers and individual schools of the health professions are examined. The current effort is an outgrowth of the existing foundations of cost finding methodology evolved over the past 20 years. Data from a study of five anonymous schools are presented to illustrate the kind of information this study approach can generate. The study indicated that it is possible to trace the funding sources for the resources utilized by a medical school to carry forward major individual programs. Because the study design prompted the use only of already existing data, not all funds available to the schools could be analyzed and the resources supported, by program, specifically identified. Improvement in this area is dependent upon further refinement in the institutions' fiscal accounting systems. The study provides a view of the on-going operations of the institution and may provide a tool for managerial decision making. (LBH)