The psychotherapy literature has much to offer as educators strive to develop deeper and more nuanced understandings of the relationships youth form with mentors and other nonparental adults in community- and school-based settings. At the center of both psychotherapy and relationship-based interventions such as mentoring is a human connection, the explicit goal of which is to foster positive changes in one of the partners. Attention has long been paid to the nature of this connection in the psychotherapy literature--what it is and should be composed of, how it is best formed and facilitated, and what part it plays in the change process. Although the relationships that youth form with mentors are certainly of a different nature from a psychotherapy relationship, there are some parallels and perhaps even core elements that these different types of important connections share. The psychotherapy literature remains a largely untapped resource for more detailed, complex, and sophisticated approaches to understanding how productive relationships are formed and sustained and how such connections foster positive change and development. In this article, the author reviews research on the core elements of psychotherapy relationships that work regardless of the theoretical framework being employed. This literature, dense and diffuse though it is, nonetheless clearly highlights two important dimensions of strong relationships that foster change and growth: an affective bond and an effective collaboration. (Contains 42 notes.)