A review of five studies by the National Rural Project determined the impact of educational collaboratives on rural special education, including types of educational collaboratives, variations within collaborative structures, benefits of collaboratives for rural special education, problems related to regional service delivery structures, and successful strategies. Predominant types of collaboratives were state-mandated special district systems/educational service agencies, cooperatives formed by local districts, regional/decentralized state education agency systems providing no direct services, and other inter-organizational structures. Major benefits were improved cost efficiency ratios, continuing sense of local autonomy, easier compliance with federal special education mandates, access to program/service specialists, better teacher retention, increased parent involvement, shared information for better planning, non-threatening information exchange, benefits of temporary systems, assessment/reallocation of resources, and conflict resolution. Problems were goal displacement, cumbersome bureaucratic/political structures, reduced district autonomy, inadequate district commitment to special education programs, inappropriate determinations of services, inadequate relationships between collaboratives and districts, staff supervision difficulties, personnel insecurity/dissatisfaction/attrition, difficulties with parents, conflicts between local district members, low district priorities for collaborative special education services, misconceptions about interagency collaboration, fiscal inequalities, difficulties of administrative turnover, conflicting regulatory/monitoring service roles, and inadequacy of collaboratives for some cases of geographic/cultural isolation. (MH)