The emergence of service-learning in higher education and the renewed emphasis on community involvement presents colleges and universities with opportunities to develop campus-community partnerships for the common good. These partnerships can leverage both campus and community resources to address critical issues in local communities. Campus-community partnerships are a series of interpersonal relationships between (a) campus administrators, faculty, staff, and students and (b) community leaders, agency personnel, and members of communities. The phases of relationships (i.e., initiation, development, maintenance, dissolution) and the dynamics of relationships (i.e., exchanges, equity, distribution of power) are explored to provide service-learning instructors and campus personnel with a clearer understanding of how to develop healthy campus-community partnerships.Historical context, institutional missions, and external expectations for knowledge and expertise have influenced the involvement of American higher education in communities. Higher education has demonstrated community involvement in many ways, including (a) cooperative extension and continuing education programs, (b) clinical and pre-professional programs, (c) top-down administrative initiatives, (d) centralized administrative-academic units with outreach missions, (e) faculty professional service, (f ) student volunteer initiatives, (g) economic and political outreach, (h) community access to facilities and cultural events, and most recently, (i) service-learning classes (Thomas, 1998). Unfortunately, however, history has contained too many instances of institutions of higher education treating communities as "pockets of needs, laboratories for experimentation, or passive