The Cities in Schools, Inc., a national nonprofit corporation, seeks to lower the Nation's school dropout rate by working to build a national network of locally owned and managed dropout prevention programs that reposition existing health and human service personnel and volunteers from business and the community into the public schoolhouse or alternative education site. The concept is to coordinate existing local services and resources so that they most effectively serve at-risk youth and their families. Part I of the manual discusses the preimplementation activities in planning a Cities in Schools program. Part II discusses the implementation activities in establishing a CIS program, with attention to the opening of a CIS/Burger King corporate academy as the local CIS program's first CIS project. Part III discusses the support activities for the local CIS programs and their project sties. These support activities involve such efforts as annual program reviews, needs identification and assessment, technical assistance, and data collection.