A growing body of research provides exciting evidence for the efficacy of both targeted and comprehensive interventions for children with autism. Relatively few of these interventions have made their way into community practice, however, and when they do, outcomes rarely approximate what is observed in university-based research settings. This implementation challenge is exacerbated among many underserved communities, for whom “research” is a loaded term. Translation of research findings into community settings is particularly difficult in school settings, in which educators and administrators may doubt the applicability of research practices to the unique aspects of settings or system resources. To overcome such barriers, having a dialogue with schools, parents, and community members around best practices is essential for the next phase of “translation” of research on behavioral treatments for individuals with ASD. This dialogue is especially important for communities that are most likely to struggle to provide access to services, with lesser capacity to implement evidence based practice, especially involving individuals under-represented in most extant ASD intervention studies. This symposium will address these issues and present a series of innovative studies with the overarching goal of enriching intervention research with concepts and strategies from implementation science.