Although the literature proclaims the need for school district and university cooperation, there are few analyses of existing partnership projects or examinations of factors facilitating or impeding successful school-university linkages and cooperation. This paper focuses on the central Florida school districts' partnership with the University of Central Florida (UCF) in an area experiencing a tremendous population explosion in recent years. The area includes Orange, Seminole, Brevard, and Lake Counties, and boasts 170,000 elementary and secondary school students and over 20,000 college students at five UCF campuses. One partnership component is a doctoral assistantship program, in which two junior level school administrators are released from current assignments for a 2-year program of study supported by the school district and the UCF College of Education. Other linkages include cooperative research efforts; student internships and adjunct faculty programs, minority teacher recruitment, a professional development institute, and a principal scholars institute. A successful school district-university partnership must recognize the possible areas and functions appropriate for collaboration and the support systems needed for an ongoing linkage. In the central Florida system, each party is both a stakeholder and a benefactor. The real winners will be the students. (Five references) (MLH)