This article reviews the unique opportunities and challenges related to establishing and maintaining a long-term community-university development partnership in a historic African American community. It highlights the significant benefits and costs generated by an interdisciplinary community development assistance project undertaken by a community development corporation and a university. The article explores a series of philosophical, methodological, pedagogical, and organizational hurdles similar interdisciplinary projects can anticipate. It discusses the specific strategies the University of Memphis project organizers devised to overcome these challenges and suggests a preliminary set of principles of good practice for interdisciplinary community-university partnership projects. (Contains 2 notes.)