The Lindeman Center for Community Empowerment at Northern Illinois University is seeking to relate its resources to the "invisible poor." The Center works with minority and other poor communities and groups in Chicago to strengthen and support them in their self-help efforts. One of the tools for empowerment that the Center is using is participatory research (PR). PR has been used by and for people who are exploited and oppressed by the dominant power structures of society, whether in the Third World or in the United States and Canada. It is an educational process involving three interrelated parts: (1) collective definition and investigation of a problem by a group of people struggling to deal with it; (2) group analysis of the underlying causes of their problem; and (3) group action to attempt to solve the problem. This approach is not a common research paradigm in higher education. Many higher education institutions and other professional organizations make their consultative and research services available to low income groups and communities. However, as possessors of "expert" knowledge, professionals often retain decision-making power and further disenfranchise the poor. More adult educators and other professionals are recognizing the potential of PR as an empowering process. The tool has been used successfully in a rural community in Nicaragua and in Appalachia. The Lindeman Center has used PR with public housing residents in Chicago. In one development, residents are learning to manage their property and take more control of their lives. Another group of"invisible poor" with whom the Lindeman Center is working in Chicago is welfare rights organizations. The Center conducted a workshop to help young women identify their leadership qualities and prepare for leadership roles. The PR approach represents an underused tool in empowering the poor, powerless, and disenfranchised groups in the United States. (KC)