The trend toward shifting responsibility for social welfare to the neighborhood level warrants a close look at the work of settlement houses, which have been providing services in conjunction with their communities for more than one hundred years. The author uses interviews with settlement house staff and participants, as well as local community leaders and observers, to examine what community embeddedness means to three New York settlements and how that embeddedness enhances the settlements' overall impact in the community. The author also examines the forces and attitudes that can prevent settlement houses from reaching their potential as agents of and centers for community building. In Building Community and Pathways to Change, which follow up on Settlement Houses Today, the authors develop case studies exploring commuity-building efforts in several settlement houses in distinctly different communities. The authors use interviews with settlement house staff and participants and on-site observations to examine a wide range of activities through which community building is undertaken, as well as the issues and challenges involved in these varying approaches.