Community assets mapping is emerging as a potentially effective process for obtaining health and community level information on populations that goes beyond a purely deficits perspective. Although the model has been in existence for over 30 years, there have been few applications of its utility for health promotion and disease prevention. Further, while African-American leaders and lay health advisors have been used widely in programmatic aspects of health initiatives, they have been used limitedly for research studies. The purpose of this paper is to present information on the training and use of 20 community leaders and lay health advisors to conduct a community assets mapping of 17 neighborhoods in Charlotte, NC. The research was part of a REACH 2010 effort to address cardiovascular disease and diabetes in a diverse, urban African-American community. Following 10 months of meetings with selected community leaders and the REACH staff and Coalition, leaders and advisors received four hours of training in assets mapping concepts and basic research principles and methods. Also, they participated in the adaptation of the assets instrument for the targeted neighborhoods. Results of these activities suggest promising research outcomes from the training and use of laypersons in the assets mapping data collection process. Leaders and advisors from 13 of the 17 neighborhoods successfully completed the mapping, for a community response rate of 76.5%. The REACH Coalition set a goal for 425 persons to be interviewed or 25 residents per neighborhood. Leaders and advisors from the 13 neighborhoods conducted interviews with 302 residents, for an individual response rate of 71.1% and contact rate for the 13 neighborhoods of 92.9%. Finally, full completion of the long 14-page assets instrument was accomplished by over 90% of the residents who participated. These rates appear to be considerably higher than many reported from research studies in African-American communities. These results may imply that both the assets mapping process and concomitant use of community leaders and lay health advisors for research purposes may bolster both the quantity of African-American research subjects as well as enhance the quality and usefulness of the data received. At the conclusion of this presentation, participants will be able to: 1) Describe relevant processes for utilizing community leaders and lay health advisors in research studies; 2) Apply research training procedures for laypersons to the assets mapping process; 3) Appreciate the usefulness of these approaches for enhancing health promotion and disease prevention efforts for African-Americans.