Although the private sector has the primary role for job generation in the U.S. market economy, local community leaders can play a significant part in creating a growth-stimulating economic environment. A comprehensive economic development strategy appropriate to a community's specific goals and conditions requires careful analysis of the structure of the local economy, its strengths and weaknesses, and development options. The fundamental data needed for such analysis include retail sales, employment, number of establishments, and sources of personal income. This information is available from federal and state agencies but the data sets suffer from some common problems, particularly from the standpoint of rural communities. These problems are: (1) infrequency of data collection; (2) reporting units--typically counties or metropolitan areas--that have little relevance to towns or rural communities; (3) data deletion out of concern for individual privacy; (4) bias toward information on the manufacturing, agriculture, construction, and mining sectors, and neglect of the service sector; and (5) lack of critical information, such as capital market data. This document also contains discussion of the need for a more reliable indicator of rural economic hardship than the unemployment rate, the problem of underemployment and other "hidden" unemployment in rural areas, confidentiality issues in data reporting, and research into location factors associated with high-growth industries. The author is a professor of agricultural economics at the University of Wisconsin, cooperative extension service, which has committed itself to an expaned educational program in community economic analysis. (SV)