Description/Overview: Although the importance of international research collaboration is increasingly acknowledged, there are few descriptions of how effective partnerships are established and maintained. Nurses often are hesitant or do not know how to effectively seek international \ research collaborations; and when collaborations are started, without adequate planning, they may not be sustainable. The purpose of this symposium is to describe experiences of establishing and maintaining international collaboration among researchers in Taiwan and the USA to conduct behavioral research for children with cancer and their families. We will describe how our collaborations were initiated through study-abroad and also describe ways our collaboration has been maintained over 7 years through internet conferencing, visiting lectureships, and professional meetings. We will discuss challenges (e.g. funding and time commitments), strategies we used to overcome them (e.g. establishing mutually beneficial goals and formalized university partnerships) and collaboration benefits derived (e.g., productive, culturally sensitive research programs, lasting friendships, travel enrichment). We also will describe examples of our two collaborative studies and their outcomes. One study was an empirical phenomenology of mother’s experiences of having their child complete cancer treatments in Taiwan. For this study, in order to identify and describe meanings of the experience, we needed common understanding of healthcare delivery, family management and cultural values. The second study was a cross-cultural evaluation of psychometric properties of Resilience in Illness Scale that first required translation and back-translation, as well as evaluation of concept equivalency. Key to our collaborations were : 1) having a common understanding and valuing of the Positive Health perspective for research and a shared model of Resilience in Illness that was culturally appropriate; 2) ability to freely exchange ideas and information through dialogue; and 3) appreciation of and willingness to learn from each other about cross-cultural mixed-methods approaches to knowledge development.