Over the past 15 years, knowledge of the afterschool field has grown substantially. A large body of evidence exists that confirms quality afterschool programs help children become more engaged in school, reduce their likelihood of taking part in at-risk behaviors or acting out in school, and help raise their academic performance. A greater emphasis on evidence-based practices has increased the number of evaluations of afterschool programs, which in turn has helped parents, educators, business leaders and policy makers alike to see the range of positive outcomes associated with participation in afterschool programs. The growth of afterschool program evaluation has also helped the afterschool field understand the elements of quality afterschool programs, spurring continuous improvements in programs and a growing sophistication of the field. The goal of this report was twofold: (1) to examine the role that afterschool programs play to support positive behavior, positive attitudes toward school and improved academic performance among children; and (2) to explore the afterschool program practices associated with positively influencing students in the aforementioned areas. To better understand promising practices in the afterschool field, this report is divided into three sections: (1) Exploring Outcomes--reviews outcomes associated with participation in afterschool programs, synthesizing high-quality evaluations of 10 afterschool programs--a majority of which employ a quasi-experimental or experimental design; (2) Promising Practices--steps out from the program level and explores research spanning hundreds of programs to present a summary of promising practices of afterschool programs, analyzing and distilling the findings into key components of quality programs; and (3) Promising Practices in Action--brings the focus back to the program level, linking the afterschool programs highlighted in Section I and the promising practices outlined in Section II. This last section provides specific examples of ways in which the afterschool programs employ each promising practice. An afterschool program evaluation chart is appended.