Today evidence based practice has become the hallmark for nursing to improve the quality of care leading to better patient outcomes. As future leaders in nursing practice, baccalaureate prepared nurses must be able to analyze current research findings, determine the feasibility in applying these findings to practice and then be able to develop strategies to implement nursing interventions based upon solid research in clinical settings. The objective for integrating research and evidence based-practice in a clinical course was to provide an experiential teaching and learning approach to encourage baccalaureate nursing students to evaluate sources of evidence for competent practice and to apply evidence based outcomes in clinical practice. In a senior clinical practicum, nursing students were expected to identify a nursing problem in their clinical setting related to client care and using established guidelines develop an action plan that would influence a change in clinical practice based upon research findings. This strategy for teaching assisted students in taking a leadership role as change agents and analyzing the appropriateness of specific research outcomes in addressing a clinical practice concern. Findings from this project demonstrated a variety of evidence resources were consulted and some of the projects substantiated existing practice, while others formed the basis for policy change, or indicated the need for further research. Two examples of student projects were the potential for medication errors and policies regarding NPO status for pre-operative patients. This learning activity generated in the clinical agencies a positive attitude toward research utilization when a specific plan of action was presented to selected health care agency nursing personnel to change or enhance clinical practice.