In this article, the authors offer the University of Brighton's Community-University Partnership Programme (CUPP) Helpdesk as a model of an "enabling platform" for university-community engagement. Despite the growth of practical and scholarly activity in this area, there is a relative lack of research focused on the processes by which higher education institutions establish and sustain community partnerships. An account of the development of the helpdesk is related to a discussion of its role in capacity building, both within the university and externally. The authors review some of the organizational barriers to effective university-community interaction and suggest that, while concrete models remain elusive in the literature, a mechanism such as the CUPP Helpdesk can help overcome the barriers that hinder the facilitation of engagement work. (Contains 1 figure and 2 endnotes.)