Abstract
Conducting a community health assessment and analysis is an essential skill for baccalaureate nursing students. Repetitive assignments in the same locale can negatively affect the community, students, and instructors.The authors discuss how a distant community can be successfully used for skill development by utilizing the Internet, communicating with key informants via telephone, and reading resource materials collected from the area. Key elements are prior visitation to the community by the instructor and collaboration with the university reference librarian.