In a perfect world, clinical trial participant populations would perfectly reflect the population from which they’re drawn. Those of us living in the real world, however, know that attracting and retaining a truly representative can be difficult. Different populations face different barriers to joining clinical trials, and UAMS and ACH researchers encounter people of a wide variety of backgrounds in their work. Crafting recruitment and retention plans that predict, and then overcome, every possible barrier to enrollment is pretty much impossible. A recent discussion in Oncology Nursing News discusses some of these barriers, and ways that nurses in particular can work to overcome them. Her ideas may be helpful both to research teams who seek to enroll study participants, and to IRB reviewers assessing recruitment plans.