This book examines the National Endowment for the Arts'(NEA) five-year agenda for research and provides a conceptual frame for planning and assessing research priorities so that the NEA can improve its ability to meet a core goal: to promote knowledge and understanding about the contributions of the arts. Concurrent with that process, the agency embarked on a series of in-depth dialogues, through interviews, webinars, and workshops, with leading thinkers in a variety of fields and sectors not exclusive to the arts. The goal of those consultations was to establish a feasible, testable, hypothesis for understanding how art works in American life. The result of the NEA's deliberations and expert consultations was a system map and measurement model that can guide the NEA's annual milestone development process as part of its five-year research agenda.