Northern Thailand is home to many hill tribes, who have lived for hundreds of years as subsistence farmers or nomadic hunters. In the 1940s, communist insurgencies drove many hill tribes from China, Burma, and other nations south into northern Thailand. Uprooted from their native lands, the hill tribes left behind ties to economic resources and, to compensate, many turned to the growth of the opium poppy as a cash crop. The growth and sale of opium endangered their lives and those of the citizens of the surrounding countries, and slash and burn farming methods resulted in environmental degradation. In 1969, the Thai government formed the Royal Projects to address this situation. The Royal Project Foundation then expanded its development efforts with the establishment of the Education and Social Development Projects (ESDPs), which seek to implement sustainable social services within the villages, and have been largely successful in hill tribe villages. The authors' research assessed the current status of the ESDPs, the causes of the program's successes and failures, and the needs of the villagers of Doi Ang Khang. The authors' study is concerned primarily with the Lahu and Palong tribes of Doi Ang Khang, which reside in the villages of Khob Dong and Nor Lae, respectively. The aim of their evaluation was to develop an understanding of why the Khob Dong village had not achieved a high level of success from the ESDPs and to recommend strategies for improving future development projects. (Contains 1 table.)