To guide Indian reservation program planners, the handbook highlights three exemplary community-based data collection efforts undertaken by Native American Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA) grantees to improve their planning and program development activities. Exemplary data collection activities reported include the Spokane Reservation Population Survey, the Oneida Reservation Problems/Needs/Wants Survey, and the Tlingit-Haida Community Survey. These surveys are presented as representative projects with key elements that may be used by CETA, other government agencies, and Indian communities to improve the data bases that in part control planning, funding, and programming. For instance, it is reported that the Spokane survey confirms the reservation population to be much higher than federal estimates and helps establish a new process for Bureau of Indian Affairs Labor Force Report updates. Following the discussions on the surveys, a suggested approach to coordinated community data collection is presented along with an outline and discussion of the five major tasks involved in the collection process. Appended are copies of survey documents, the Shoshone-Paiute Health Needs Survey instrument, the 1980 census supplementary questionnaire for American Indians, and a model for a community social profile. (AN)