The monograph summarizes findings from literature concerned with instructional effectiveness and applies those findings to the education of handicapped students. Emphasis is given to the relationship between instructional variables and positive academic outcomes for students. Characteristics of effective instruction for regular education, characteristics of effective teaching programs and models, and characteristics of effective instruction for special education students are described. Particular emphasis is given to the positive effects of teachers' instructional matching, expectations, instructional and management strategies and the effect of the amount of student academic engaged time on student achievement. Among general characteristics of effective instruction identified are substantive teacher-student interaction, maximization of student success and academic engaged time, and data-based instructional planning. Programs yielding positive academic outcomes for special education students are described and include the Exemplary Center for Reading Instruction, Direct Instruction, classwide peer tutoring, cooperative learning, and the Adaptive Learning Environments Model. (Author/DB)