If schools are to respond successfully to increased accountability requirements, they must find ways to address non-cognitive factors that can impede student learning. Findings from a study of school districts along the U.S.-Mexico border show educators grappling with the impact of poverty and poor health on students' readiness to learn. These districts are meeting students' non-academic needs by partnering with human services agencies, pooling resources from multiple agencies, and sharing resources across districts. For impoverished districts across the country, partnerships between schools and parents, human services agencies, nonprofit organizations, businesses, and local governments are a vehicle for providing comprehensive, but not duplicative, services to students and their families. Research suggests that effective partnerships have common characteristics: a formalized structure for ongoing collaboration, coherent funding streams, time and resources for planning and developing relationships, incentives to support staff recruitment and retention, well-designed data collection and evaluation plans, information technology to support data-driven management, and technical assistance before and during program implementation. Recommendations related to each of these areas are offered to federal, state, and local policymakers to support school-community partnerships. (SV)