In the wake of the farm crisis & industrial restructuring in the 1980s, abject poverty among rural households has been increasingly apparent & many other rural households are merely getting by with family incomes below the official poverty level. Here, an attempt is made to determine why some households are getting by while others are not, based on analysis of qualitative data from in-depth interviews conducted with members of limited-resource farm households. Results show that "making it" involves continually strategizing to earn a living. Typically, strategies include coordinating several different economic activities to use both available household labor on & off the farm & available resources, eg, farm land, standing timber, or farm equipment. Strategies change as household members respond to changing conditions & anticipate new opportunities. Discussions about what household members did in the past & their plans for the future reveal that simple snapshots of present activities miss the active processes of looking for new opportunities, trying these out, & adopting or rejecting them. While strategies are often effective for "getting by," household situations are often tenuous & lack security & benefits associated with middle-class employment. Rural development policies should consider the needs of adults & children in such households.