A rural school administrator functions in many roles including disciplinarian, extracurricular supervisor, community liaison, curriculum leader, interpreter of state department regulations and fiscal director. New technologies in education have given even more roles to the administrator. The need to keep abreast of the plethora of educational research and its potential application to the local school encounters the obstacles of insufficient time and inexperience with educational research. Several ways to meet the challenge of new research and technologies exist, each with advantages and disadvantages to the rural school district. The most cost effective and versatile would be hiring a rural education consultant. Major areas on which the education consultant can usefully focus include: (1) instruction; (2) educational technology; (3) polity development; (4) curriculum improvement; (5) research and development; (6) personnel training and professional development; (7) grant development; (8) administration assistance; (9) program evaluation; and (10) communication. The consultant should possess the following qualifying characteristics: (1) a generalist orientation; (2) a background not necessarily in education; (3) a problem-solving orientation; (4) knowledge of current education research and program information; (5) access to university and/or college departments; (6) knowledge of research methodologies; (7) knowledge of educational technology; (8) written and oral communication skills; (9) general management skills; (10) nonauthoritative style; and (11) a clear focus on educational improvement. The advantages of the rural educational consultant model, procedures for recruiting the consultant, and district attributes conductive to use of the model are also discussed, and recommendations for adopting the consultant model are offered. (ALL)