Described is a project designed to examine the role of the public school resource specialist in serving exceptional children in California. The first section examines the establishment of the resource specialist role by the California Master Plan for Special Education, provides a historical review of school responses to exceptional children, and considers organizational factors affecting the resource specialist. A section on research methods describes the observational study of nine specialist teachers and the probability study of role perceptions in which data on demographic characteristics and work assignment information was gathered. Major findings are discussed in terms of descriptive findings (including a review of three approaches--clinical-therapeutic, categorical problem remediation, and normalization), and seven policy relevant findings (including differences in the perceptions of role groups concerning how specialist teachers divide their attention and time, and the conclusion that specialists with a normalization approach spend large amounts of time with work not directly related to the needs of exceptional students). Implications of the clinical-therapeutic and remedial-instructional approach are discussed, and 12 recommendations for training, policy making, and research are listed. (CL)