This paper provides insight into the history and growth of the National Reading Research Center (NRRC), that was charged to engage in research aimed at improving the reading proficiency of all students and to develop a broad, comprehensive model of reading acquisition that integrates the various cognitive, social, motivational, cultural, and instructional elements. The paper begins with an overview of the NRRC's mission and research agenda that acknowledges and addresses four pervasive problems: (1) too many Americans lack the ability and the desire to read and write; (2) the crisis in equity; (3) the nature of current reading instruction; and (4) the prevalence of decontextualized reading research. The paper next discusses how the research is unified by an "engagement perspective," which is based on the assumption that students acquire the competencies and motivations to read for diverse purposes. The paper then presents a brief description of nine research objectives, followed by an outline of how collaborative research has been and remains central to the NRRC. The paper next discusses the research structure for the first four years of the NRRC. The paper then discusses in detail the five strands of research undertaken during the third year of the project, which was designed to extend the knowledge base about how to cultivate highly motivated, self-determining readers who are the architects of their own learning. The paper concludes with an overview of projects for the fourth year of the NRRC. (Contains 51 references and lists of projects for the third and fourth years of the five-year project.) (RS)