In May 2012, University of North Carolina (UNC) President Tom Ross simultaneously commissioned two task forces to develop indicators that all UNC campuses could use to measure "progress in community engagement and economic development." The charge to the Community Engagement Task Force and the Economic Development Task Force was to develop metrics that were both meaningful as a demonstration of the impact of the UNC system on the State of North Carolina and practical to collect given the limited fiscal and personnel resources available to campuses. The separate, multi-campus task forces ultimately produced one combined Report to draw attention to the interconnections between community engagement and economic development, as well as to create data collection and reporting efficiencies. This article shares the trial process through which six criteria for selecting metrics and measures were established, as well as discusses challenges and opportunities of developing system-wide metrics on community engagement and economic development. Analysis of this collective effort within the UNC system may inform future efforts to identify and implement institution- or system-wide measures and metrics that capture indicators of progress in community engagement and economic development.