A research strategy that the National Institute of Education (NIE) has adopted to obtain information about what Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act is accomplishing toward achievement of two of its objectives is presented. These two objectives are to fund special services to low achieving students in the poorest schools and to contribute to the cognitive, emotional, social, or physical development of participating students. In designing the research, NIE recognized that all of Title I's purposes cannot be addressed within a single research project, using a uniform research strategy. NIE therefore decided to implement separate studies to address each specific purpose of the Title I program. In keeping with this strategy separate studies were undertaken to describe compensatory education services currently being delivered and the effects of these services on children. The study uses data gathered from the research on selected programs to interpret the data on services and to determine, for selected instructional areas, the apparent potential for success of practices in use throughout the country. This paper illustrates the NIE research strategy and presents some preliminary findings from the survey of services. (RC)