Increasing collaboration between vocational education and the defense establishment has become a priority of the Federal Government in its efforts to meet national defense preparedness goals. As a result of a project to meet this priority need, this set of guidelines was developed for use in motivating and training individuals to develop and maintain effective linkages under various conditions. These guidelines are concerned not only with collaborative efforts between vocational education and defense industries, but also with linkages between vocational education and the armed forces. The guide contains 11 sections. The first section is an overview of the vocational education-defense sector relationship. It is followed in the next two sections by a discussion of the benefits of vocational education-defense collaboration and examples of collaborative efforts. The fourth section contains information on determining standards of program effectiveness, while the fifth and sixth sections discuss factors contributing to successful linkages and barriers to such linkages. In the seventh section, a systems approach to cooperative planning is presented; this is followed by a section on implementation processes and techniques and a section on a comprehensive evaluation system. The tenth section is a short summary of the collaboration guidelines, while the final section provides a list of references. (KC)