This article introduces the special issue of the journal on the topic of youth violence as adaptation to community violence. Contrary to the predominant perspective that youth violence is a sign of dysfunction or maladaptation, the articles collected here consider whether some youth violence may have positively adaptive consequences in the face of community violence. In addition to reviewing the contributions and limitations of each article, the editors propose a life course/ecological framework for guiding future research. In particular, they call for additional interdisciplinary collaboration and longitudinal research designs that will enable researchers to address many unresolved theoretical and methodological questions.