To clarify delivery system concepts, several topics will be addressed: educational needs of lower-income older people, formulation of a design concept, specification of the system's concrete aspects, and research/development implications. As the proportion of persons over age sixty-four grows and sensitivity to unmet lifelong learning needs rises, the need for conscious design of lifelong learning institutions increases. A service system should have linking mechanisms that attend to the individual's total life situation. The delivery system can be identified as an interactive, self-regulating, three-component system: (1) a sensor receiving environmental information, (2) a transducer utilizing information to generate and prioritize alternatives, and (3) an effector converting alternatives into operational programs. Linkages at the interface between sensor and effector contribute to the system's cybernetic potential. Persons participating in the delivery system along the interface are potentially significant reference persons for unreached persons in the environing society. System relationships can be conceptualized in seven phases: program anticipation and verification, data collection, academic programming, budget, administrative organization, implementation, and formal evaluation. It is proposed that theory-based method can serve dialectically to link conceptual design and the action of implementation. Disciplined inquiry into the development of design theory and delivery systems grounded in theory-based method is needed. (CSS)