The Scientific/Administrative Leadership Core provides the scientific, managerial, and coordinafing structure to ensure the efficient and effective functioning of the program project. The Scientific/Administrative Core includes experienced research administrators, a set of external scientific advisors, and an Executive Steering Committee that provides scientific integrafion, quality control, and oversight across projects and cores. Our specific aims fall under three broad domains: scientific leadership, mentoring, and administration. Our scientific leadership aims include: 1) providing overall scientific leadership to the program project; 2) providing an intellectual environment that will generate a collaborafive program of mulfidisciplinary research to address important issues about adolescent and young adult tobacco use, including helping to plan overiapping analyses across projects; 3) providing support for and coordinafion of the research activities across projects and cores; 4) maintaining policies and procedures forthe program project (e.g., publicafion and presentafion policies, authorship and collaborafive policies); and 5) coordinating and promoting dissemination of research findings. Our mentoring aim includes providing mentoring and career development opportunifies (e.g., peer review publication authorship, national meefing presentations, dissertafion projects) for graduate students, post-doctoral fellows and junior faculty. Our administrative aims include: 1) providing overall administrative leadership and support for the program project; 2) maintaining financial oversight of the enfire program project; and 3) coordinating all networking between projects, cores, and Institutions to ensure efficient operations and timely communications, including the maintenance of communicafion vehicles and structures (e.g., password protected web sites for sharing of documents, informafion across projects, cores, and insfitufions). Thus, this core plays an essential role in this program project by serving as the coordinating center of the group of invesfigators and integrating all acfivifies and scientific findings. This type of integration is likely to lead to greater progress in the field.