The variety of problems identified with undergraduate education at large research universities may best be summed up by a disquieting portrait provided by the Boyer Commission. In its 1998 report, called "Reinventing Undergraduate Education", the commission described thousands of undergraduates receiving instruction from novice teaching assistants or professors working from ancient notes, taking a smattering of courses that do not lead to a cohesive body of knowledge, and graduating without knowing how to "think logically, write clearly, or speak coherently". Yet, as the Boyer Commission acknowledged, research universities possess resources that position them to be excellent educational institutions, including renowned professors, state-of-the-art facilities, and cutting-edge research production. Partially in response to critiques from the Boyer Commission and other reports, research institutions across North America have organized living-learning programs that allow residential students to enjoy the learning and developmental benefits of living in an intimate academic community within the context of a large university. Living-learning programs are founded on a premise asserted by college impact research that integrating students' in-class and out-of-class experiences can improve their learning. As the number of living-learning programs has grown, research on and assessment of their effectiveness has been largely confined to single-program studies on individual campuses. Their proliferation signals a need to expand the scope of study beyond single institutions, a challenge taken up by the National Study of Living-Learning Programs (NSLLP), through a grant sponsored by the Association of College and University Housing Officers International (ACUHO-I) Research Commission. In this article, the authors offer recommendations based on a pilot study that used the larger study's survey instrument at four research universities: University of Illinois, University of Maryland, University of Michigan, and University of Wisconsin. (Contains 5 notes.)