This paper attempts to provide evaluators, administrators, and policy makers with the advantages of and methodology of merging formative and summative data to enhance summative evaluations. It draws on RMC Research Corporation's 1980-81 California Statewide Evaluation of Migrant Education. The concern that evaluations typically fail to obtain the "real story" was the underlying challenge for the approach used. The aggregate of 22 separate formative field studies was merged with the typical summative data base. The formative studies were compelling qualitative efforts in and of themselves; hence, they provided excellent sources for fleshing out the skeletal results from the summative effort. As a result, practitioners at all levels have accepted and are using the evaluation findings. (Author)