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Over the past 25 years, five large-scale research studies of community college students have been conducted in North Carolina, involving cooperation between Duke University, North Carolina State University, and the North Carolina Department of Community Colleges. The different research strategies employed in these studies can be seen as taking one of three forms: the Traditional Researcher Dominated Strategy; the Researcher Dominated with Limited Client Involvement Strategy; and the Researcher-Client Collaborative Strategy. By examining and contrasting these three approaches, referred to collectively as "action research" strategies, this paper seeks to identify the specific strategy that provides for optimum levels of involvement, impact, and overall effectiveness. After an introductory section, the paper reviews the essential principles and concepts of action research and presents a model identifying strategies which would maximize the linkages between the university researcher, community college administrators, and the sponsors of the research. The list of the critical stages in the action research process identifies the following eight steps: (1) legitimization of the effort; (2) problem definition; (3) development of the plan; (4) data collection and preliminary analysis; (5) feedback to the client group; (6) joint diagnosis and planning; (7) action; and (8) evaluation. The paper then uses these eight stages as criteria to evaluate the three different research strategies. Examining extent of usage of study results, comparisons of study impact, comments from college and system staff, and study response rates, the paper concludes that the Researcher-Client Collaborative Strategy, involving more direct participation of system and college personnel and more direct application of study results, is the optimum model. (JMC)