Within the past three years our university school of nursing has developed several partnerships to prepare nurse leaders at the Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) level. These partnerships are with hospitals, health systems with several participating hospitals, and other schools of nursing that do not offer doctoral education. The first step in partnership formation has been identification of shared goals, focused on improving the leadership knowledge and skills of educational program participants. The majority of the courses for the doctoral program are offered in intensive executive format at the partner institution. Students must complete a brief residency requirement on the university campus. Thus far, 13 partnerships have been initiated. These cohorts of students share a common goal, enhancing their leadership knowledge and skills to affect change in their sponsoring institutions. In addition, hospital/health system partnerships are linked to the institutional goals of achieving magnet status for the institution. Thus, course assignments are geared toward achieving institutional goals. Educational institution partnerships are focused on preparing the next generation of faculty for academic leadership at the basic and advance practice nursing levels. Profiles of recent graduates of the partnership model indicate success: many have assumed nurse executive roles in hospitals; others have developed leadership enterprises, or provided academic leadership in schools of nursing. This presentation will focus not only on describing the model, but also on delineating characteristics of successful academic service partnerships.