Graduate students newly embarking on community-engaged scholarship often find themselves in a unique context, wherein as students they may enjoy a wealth of opportunities but a dearth of other resources that contribute to quality community-engaged research. This reflective essay explores how three ecological-community psychology doctoral students used their student status to leverage opportunities for community-engaged research despite resource-limited/shifting resource situations. After positioning the essay within existing thought and research, each author provides an in-depth description of a community-engaged project. Each vignette includes an assessment of the level of community engagement during various phases of the project using Doberneck and Dann's (2019) abacus for collaboration. The authors then reflect on commonalities among their approaches and lessons learned and conclude with recommendations for graduate students and their mentors who may be operating in opportunity rich, resource poor contexts.