HIV infection occurs in disproportionately high rates among racial and ethnic minorities in the United States, making it imperative that individuals from these groups be included in research studies. Unfortunately, it is often difficult to recruit HIV-infected Hispanics and African Americans into clinical trials, but a skilled interdisciplinary team that includes researchers with racial and ethnic diversity can help. This article describes a successful approach for building an interdisciplinary team that values the participation of racial and ethnic minorities in clinical trials and that has the skills to work with these groups. The success of the Adelante (a Spanish word meaning forward) Team can be attributed to team members who actively participate in decisionmaking, are empowered, and function in a cohesive manner. Successful research teams build relationships with research participants in order to increase the probability that racial and ethnic minorities will enroll and participate fully in research. KeywordsAfrican American; clinical research; Hispanic; HIV; interdisciplinary; team building Building a strong interdisciplinary research team is an important step in addressing the challenges of conducting HIV research in racial and ethnic minority communities. As the science and delivery of health care becomes increasingly complex, there is a need to move from discipline-specific to collaborative research models (Loeb et al., 2008). This paper will describe a successful approach used to build a collaborative interdisciplinary research team to study the participation of HIV-infected Hispanics and African Americans in clinical trials. Aboelela and colleagues (2007) have recommended the following definition for interdisciplinary research:Interdisciplinary research is any study or group of studies undertaken by scholars from two or more distinct scientific disciplines. The research is based upon a conceptual model that links or integrates theoretical frameworks from those disciplines, uses study design and methodology that is not limited to any one field, and requires the use of perspectives and skills of the involved disciplines throughout multiple phases of the research process. (p. 341)The advantages of interdisciplinary research include reduction of fragmentation and duplication of efforts, representation of significant and varied perspectives, and development of culturally competent strategies (Garcia-Ramirez, Paloma, Suarez-Balcazar, & Balcazar, 2009;McGuire, 1999;Proenca, 2007). The members of our research team have combined skills and expertise in nursing, social work, bioethics, medicine, communications, research, linguistics, public relations, and patient recruitment. The Need for Research in Racial and Ethnic Minority CommunitiesAlthough African Americans are the largest group affected by HIV infection in the United States, they continue to be underrepresented in clinical trials (Branson, Davis, & Butler, 2007;Garber, Hanusa, Switzer, Mellors, & Arnold, 2007;Loftin, Barnett, Bunn, & Sullivan, ...