The purposes of this national study of independent, nonagency adoptions were: (1) to determine the experience of the parties involved (biological parents, adoptive parents, agencies, intermediaries, and law enforcement agents); (2) to identify agency policies, procedures and resources that deter agency adoptions and thus encourage independent adoptions; and (3) to identify weaknesses in state laws and regulations and their enforcement that allow abuses of the independent adoption process to continue. The study involved: (1) an analysis of adoption laws and regulations and their enforcement in all 50 states; (2) a questionnaire survey of one voluntary and one public adoption agency in each state to obtain information on their knowledge of independent adoption; and (3) an investigation of independent adoptions in 5 cities through personal interviews with adopting parents, biological mothers who relinquished children aged 2 or under, and independent adoption facilitators. Major topics focused on in the analysis included the role of adoption agencies; adoptive parents' concerns, their agency experiences, feelings about adoption and the risk involved; the experiences and concerns of the biological parents; the facilitators' involvement in the adoption field and with adoptive and biological parents; laws on adoptive placement; responses of attorneys general/district attorneys pertaining to the enforcement of state adoption laws; and policy recommendations for legal and agency changes that would reduce or eliminate the risks of independent adoptions. (CM)