Community-referenced activities, which involve combinations of skills used in routine tasks of daily living, are critical for the independent functioning of moderately and severely handicapped persons. The paper examines the characteristics of these activities in order to extract implications for enhancing instruction. The tasks involved in such community-referenced mathematics activities as grocery shopping and using a vending machine are analyzed in the context of: (1) the length of the task (i.e., number of steps involved); (2) the responses contained in the task (e.g., motor responses, verbal responses, math skills); and (3) variations within the task, which may require a generalization training approach. (JDD)