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The need for collaborative approaches has both an ethical and pragmatic imperative in the fields of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health, education and research. It has been argued that both Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and non-Indigenous people are not adequately equipped to address inequity in contemporary Australia without an understanding of both Indigenous and Western knowledge systems. Towards developing this capacity, a collaboration between differing knowledge systems can result in a kind of 'gestalt leap' or 'third space'. Examples of this exchange include Anangu concepts such as Malparara and Ngapartji Ngapartji. Mindful of this argument, the authors of this paper have found a limited literature on the process and benefits of collaborations that bring together the disparate knowledge systems of Indigenous and non-Indigenous cultures. This paper contributes to the development of such a literature and focuses upon the processes by which these benefits may be maximised. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]