Legislation has largely treated planning and evaluation in vocational education separately. There has been a history of increasing requirements in planning and evaluation and of diffusing responsibility. In addition, existing policy regarding vocational education's dominant mission shows a general lack of clarity. Such factors inhibit the linking of planning and evaluation. The planning literature shows that vocational educators have tended to emphasize certain approaches to and uses of planning. Although planning theorists have developed multiple approaches that might address many of the contemporary problems facing vocational education, these approaches have had very limited use. A conclusion is that alternatives to the dominant "rational-comprehensive" approach to planning can facilitate the useful linking of planning and evaluation. The evaluation literature reveals a gradual evolution of the scope and methodology of evaluation in response to political and organizational contexts. The theme of evaluation utilization emerges as critical to the linking process. A hypothesis is that the primary benefit of using evaluation will be realized through its capacity to institutionalize organizational learning. These multiple streams of literature can be brought together in a proposal for a new metaphor for linking in which planning and evaluation are seen as mutually inclusive rather than exclusive. (Contains 102 references.) (YLB)