This proceedings record contains 87 presentations, including 65 complete or edited transcripts and 22 abstracts. Eighteen papers address the conference theme of creative collaboration, describing cooperative agreements between universities and school districts to provide enhanced high school curricula, college preparation courses, and opportunities for teacher education, and among several rural school districts to share resources, support personnel, and educational specialists. Fifteen papers consider problems and challenges of, and solutions to, serving disabled students in rural settings. Twelve papers are concerned with rural teachers: their importance to rural education, inservice training and professional development, and recruitment and morale. Six papers describe the latest applications of distance learning to rural education. Other topics include funding of rural education, present and future Congressional support for rural and small schools, innovative rural special education projects, student motivation, small school effectiveness, school decentralization in Norway, oral history in the curriculum of a remote Alaska school, Indian vocational education in a remote area, dropout prevention, gifted programs in rural schools, science and technology programs for rural and small schools, student peer groups in small schools, critical thinking training for K-12, and GED (General Educational Development) and adult literacy programs. The proceedings contain the conference schedule, a list of 1987 national awards for exemplary rural and small school programs, and a list of presenters. (SV)