Guidelines based on Project Head Start performance standards are offered for persons interested in starting and operating a home-based child development program providing individualized family services through home visits. Opening sections of the manual sensitize prospective service providers to problems and positive outcomes of home-based programs, discuss several misconceptions concerning home-based programs and point out why home-based programs work. Subsequent sections of the manual focus on the parameters of the home-based program, community needs assessment, and program implementation. Suggestions are given for recruiting families, assessing the family and child, conducting the home visit, and record keeping. Concluding sections offer insights for management, including brief discussions of management factors in quality programming, budgeting, and interpreting program results. Two self-assessment instruments for home visitors, including one that can also be used by supervisors to monitor home visitors, are appended. (Author/RH)