The needs and strengths of immigrant and refugee backgrounds are multifaceted. As newcomers in the community many residents lack the necessary language skills, as well as social and cultural capital necessary to navigate new social service systems. While families struggle to integrate into a new culture, social service systems with increasingly fewer resources struggle to respond to their needs. University-community partnerships provide an environment that combines and redistributes the resources of higher education and the community’s knowledgebase. The result is capacity-building at multiple levels. This paper will present a case study of the Hartland Partnership Center, a higher education-community partnership focused on capacity-building and collective learning. As part of the case study, faculty, students, residents, and community organizations were brought together to exchange knowledge and effect systemic change.