Introduction: As community-based participatory research (CBPR) is increasingly recognized as an effective approach for understanding and addressing health inequities, there is a need for innovative strategies to enhance capacity to conduct effective CBPR. To this end, the Detroit Community-Academic Urban Research Center (Detroit URC), a 20 year old CBPR partnership, established the CBPR Partnership Academy, a four-year national initiative that annually brings together 12 community-academic pairs for intensive training, support, and networking facilitated by experienced Detroit URC community and academic partners. The integrated, applied learning program includes a: 1) one-week, on-site, intensive course, 2) full year of structured distance learning activities, 3) small grant and ongoing mentoring to foster development of a CBPR partnership, and 4) Community-Academic Scholars Network for ongoing networking and support. Methods: The Detroit URC conducted a mixed method evaluation of the Partnership Academy that included data from a course evaluation questionnaire, semi-structured video interviews, questionnaires after each learning activity, focused group discussions, web-based analytics, a pre- and post-academy survey, and documentation of such outcomes as funding received and new partnerships developed. Results: We describe and analyze findings from the inaugural year with the first cohort of the CBPR Partnership Academy, including: program reach; description of academic-community teams and their CBPR projects; process and outcome evaluation results; and effectiveness of combining on-site and distance learning. Conclusion: We discuss facilitating factors, challenges, and lessons learned from using a community-academic partner based, integrated, and applied training program to enhance capacity to use CBPR to ensure the right to health.