Within the Partnership for Rural Improvement (PRI), community consultants operate within three complex sets of relationships: client groups, the organizational structure of PRI, and the local operational base. Community consultants are responsible for developing and facilitating rural development and for providing assistance in community and regional organization and rural development processes. PRI community consultants are effective as trainers, change agents, resource linkers, nurturers, and mediators, due principally to their non-aligned position within the consortium of public service organizations. Community consultants help people increase their own capacities to develop and facilitate rural development, stimulate and encourage communication and collaboration among organizations and agencies, maintain contact with agencies and institutions outside the area whose goals are related to the PRI, assist citizen involvement in planning and decision-making in PRI-sponsored programs, utilize a working knowledge of the community and regional structure in their assigned area, and identify emerging community issues and priorities. Successful community consultants must develop an understanding of their own attitudes, values, and perceptions, and the effect these have on their actions; have a personal commitment to continued learning and growth; avoid burnout; facilitate local autonomy and control in an unobtrusive fashion; be committed to humanity, democracy, objectivity, and change; and understand the dynamics of their own and others' power. (NQA)