Natural resource and poverty relationships are regionally specific and are associated with particular segments of the nation's population, but have no overall direct causal tie. Although employment in natural-resource-based industries in rural areas accounts for only 16% of all rural employment nationally, these industries continue to make important contributions to local economies in particular regions. While the economy in large parts of rural America is unaffected by natural-resource development and more dependent on general economic trends, in certain regions the viability of rural communities and their residents is greatly affected by natural-resource industry. Agricultural laborers, resource-linked Southern Appalachians, rural Blacks of the southern Coastal Plain, and Great Plains and Western Indians are highly poverty-prone nonmetropolitan populations. Programs and policies to address resource-related poverty can't be sweeping but must be tailored to individual settings. To improve incomes through natural resources requires not only development of the resources, but a successful combination of all of the other factors that make a resource economic: capital, labor, technology, management, and markets. (PM)