While health promotion practitioners are engaging increasingly in research, there has been little examination of the practical dilemmas they may face in negotiating and collaborating with academics and community members in action research projects. This paper analyses how the practice of health promotion can interact with action research, and considers issues that arise for organizationally based health promotion practitioners and professional researchers. The first section charts types of action research along three dimensions (power, goals/values, resources). The second section examines some of the issues and practical dilemmas which arise in negotiating and researching collaborative projects in community health promotion. The discussion includes the differing perspectives of: practitioners (managerial and frontline), community members and academic researchers. The final section outlines a hybrid model of action research, developed in our work with community members, organizationally based health promoters and academy-based researchers. It combines the reflective practice of practice-based action research with the community participation and control of participatory research. The model is called community reflective action research.