Government agencies and members of the educational research community have petitioned for research-based curricula. The ambiguity of the phrase "research-based", however, undermines attempts to create a shared research foundation for the development of, and informed choices about, classroom curricula. This article presents a framework for the construct of research-based curricula. One implication is that traditional strategies such as market research and research-to-practice models are insufficient; more adequate is the use of multiple phases of the proffered Curriculum Research Framework. (Contains 2 tables and 7 footnotes.)