The Los Angeles Unified School District in 1999 approved a ten-year program to implement a substantive, sequential curriculum in arts education. A central goal of the plan calls for schools to build partnerships with the Los Angeles arts community to provide educational programming, beginning with elementary schools in the Arts Prototype Schools (APS) program. This study examined the range of partnerships in operation and identified partnership challenges and facilitators through interviews with APS principals and teachers, local district arts advisors, and directors of arts organizations.