The National Center for Family Literacy (FCFL) began the Family Independence Initiative (FII) to address the needs of welfare recipients and their families for literacy services. During the FII's development phase in 1997-1998, NCFL funded five family literacy program grantees to develop models of work-focused family literacy services. To satisfy welfare requirements, the grantees ensured that the onsite family literacy services offered were central to developing participants' basic and work preparedness skills, and they infused career awareness and work preparedness activities in the adult education, parent time, and early childhood component of services. Based on the lessons learned in the development phase, NCFL implemented a pilot phase (1998-2000) in which 11 grantees in 6 cities were funded. The pilot phase established the importance of the following elements to program success: (1) a solid organizational infrastructure; (2) identification of target populations so that core program components can be tailored to them; (3) internal program coordination and coordination with other agencies; (4) adequate time for the planning and coordination that are critical to successful integration of curricular activities; and (5) technical assistance in areas such as developing core services and collecting and interpreting data. A follow-up study of FII participants is planned in order to understand the FII's long-term outcomes. (MN)