Under an exchange model for accountability in probation agencies, the community provides adequate funding and resources for probation; the central probation department provides professional development resources, monitoring, and administrative support; and the local agency provides supportive supervision and facillitates participatory decisionmaking. In addition, the officer provides the levels of surveillance, service, and resource brokerage demanded by law, professional ethics, and agency mission; and the offender provides compliance with conditions of probation, including, in some cases, restitution and community service. The important elements in this theory of accountability in probation are (1) structural and community supports for probation supervision and service, (2) professional efficacy and identity among agencies and officers, and (3) ability of probation officers to reconcile competing work demands. Data from a project involving small probation agencies are applied to these elements. The project developed a knowledge base about small probation agencies for adult offenders with a view toward proposing training initiatives for the probation officers. The data bases encompass computer-stored data on 551 agencies and 1,105 probation officers, along with hundreds of pages of field notes and interview transcripts. Significant problems included the lack of community resources available for use by probation officers in servicing clients; probation officer complacency or resignation; and officer role conflict in trying to provide both assistance to the client and the required amount of social control. Nineteen references are provided.