Background/Context: Emerging experiences suggest that research-practice partnerships (RPPs) can benefit both research and practice. As researchers and practitioners become part of the same social network, they also can become trusted sources of information for one another. By modeling the research use process, practitioners can incorporate what they learn into their own research acquisition and interpretation processes and researchers can gain a better understanding of how their work can be designed and conducted so that it is directly relevant to practice. Purpose/Focus of the Study: Prior literature on research-practice partnerships has identified common challenges of these partnerships such as turnover, trust, common language, and complex systems. The study follows a grounded theory approach to better understand challenges and dynamics within research-practice partnerships. Setting: The study included members of eight research-practice partnerships including two focused primarily on the use of early warning indicators to reduce high school dropout. Partnerships were diverse in their location and maturity. Five partnerships were located in the Midwest, one partnership was located in the South, and two partnerships were located in New England. Half of the partnerships were less than two years old at the time of the interviews, and the oldest partnership was 8 years old. Research Design: Using a grounded theory approach to better understand challenges and dynamics within RPPs, we analyzed qualitative interview data inductively to identify common themes discussed by respondents. Data Collection and Analysis: The study team conducted telephone interviews with two researchers and two practitioners from eight RPPs, for a total of 31 interviews -- one researcher was interviewed for two different partnerships. The team used semi-structured interview protocols aligned to the four research questions. In analyzing the interview data, we identified themes, categories, and theories that emerged from the data and confirmed or refuted our initial impressions. Findings: Researchers and practitioners across partnerships shared ten strategies used to address challenges faced by research practice partnerships. 1. Engaging in mutually responsive, transparent communication about partnership activities was a common strategy for ensuring partnership trust, building a common language, and preventing turnover. 2.Finding opportunities for human connection within the partnership is instrumental to developing trust. 3. Researchers and practitioners described bidirectional efforts to build shared understanding of language used in their respective contexts, including research methodologies and locally specific terminology employed by practitioners. 4. A high number of researchers and practitioners mentioned heightened consciousness of the use of language and ongoing efforts to check for understanding throughout the life of the partnership. 5. Overall, approximately half of the respondents highlighted the power of one or more partnership members with varied experiences in both research and practical content to bridge those worlds and make meaning for others. 6. To tackle the challenge of working in and across educational systems, respondents most-commonly mentioned the importance of having a diverse partnership composition or ensuring that there is representation of individuals from various levels and layers of the system. 7. In addition to bringing together a group of partnership members with a wide range of content knowledge, several respondents also noted the strategy of leveraging partnership "boundary spanners"--specific individuals with knowledge of multiple levels of the system who can help shape activities at the partnership level to help move the partnership's work across the system. 8. The strategy most frequently mentioned to engage members and ultimately cultivate trust and/or prevent turnover was to create authentic roles for practitioners and value practitioner voice. 9. Also mentioned by both researchers and practitioners was a relevant research agenda or focal topic concerning the development of trust, development of a common language, and prevention of member turnover. 10. Another commonly mentioned strategy for mitigating turnover was selecting natural replacements to fill positions that had turned over. Conclusions/Recommendations: This study provides guidance for researchers facilitating RPPs to reflect on the ways in which they are working with their partners to implement identified strategies. Practitioners participating in RPPs may want to provide their research partners with feedback on the extent to which they perceive these strategies being implemented in their partnership. Finally, researchers interested in building the literature on RPP processes and strategies might do so by conducting similar interviews with a larger sample of RPPs to further develop a typology of strategies for enhancing RPP efforts related to building trust and overcoming challenges. These strategies could be codified and used to train future researchers and practitioners who want to engage in or improve existing RPPs.