This document comprises the final report of the Regional Exchange project, through which Research for Better Schools (RBS) has provided research-based information, technical assistance, and training services to the states of Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, to assist state educational leaders in developing and implementing policies and programs aimed at improving local education agencies and their staffs. The first part of the report provides a brief review of RBS's history of working with state educational leaders, highlighting its goals and some of the ways it has conducted its activities. The second part describes eight case studies selected to reflect educational improvement priorities to which RBS has contributed over the past three years. These descriptions illustrate how state educational improvement priorities came into being; how a laboratory can contribute to the design, development, implementation, and institutionalization of programs that address those priorities; and what the outcomes of such collaboration can be for state and local educational agencies. The third part summarizes some of the understandings that RBS has developed about states, about RBS itself, and about the conditions that allow laboratories to contribute constructively to state educational improvement priorities. The last part presents several recommendations based on these understandings. Two appendixes are included: (1) a five-part summary of the information provided in the 1983 and 1984 annual reports and the 1985 quarterly reports; and (2) a summary of the RBS pilot project to help local education agencies assess current practice in light of educational research and development. (TE)