The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s Center for Substance Abuse Treatment’s Practice Improvement Collaboratives (PIC) program was developed to enable communities to address and resolve barriers encountered in moving research into clinical practice. The PIC’s intent is to help improve substance abuse treatment by expanding the adoption of evidence-based practices through the collaborative efforts of providers, researchers, and policymakers. Under the PIC program, 14 grants were awarded. This monograph describes the experiences of the first 11 of the 14 PIC grantees during the developmental phase of the program. The report highlights the need to foster communication between practice and research to make research more applicable to actual treatment settings and to encourage practitioners to implement scientifically valid treatment practices. It highlights the issues and challenges faced by the project sites and the strategies used to overcome identified barriers. The geographic areas targeted by each PIC and part of this report include: (1) statewide: Arizona, Iowa, New York, and Oregon; (2) urban area: Los Angeles, CA, San Francisco, CA, Tampa Bay, FL, Chicago, IL, New Orleans, LA, and Urban American Indian; and (3) rural area: Western Central Georgia. The report presents the experiences of the PIC projects during the first cohorts’ developmental year.