Since 2011 the National Partnership for Action to End Health Disparities (NPA), an initiative supported by the federal Office of Minority Health (OMH), has been working to build and sustain a nationwide, comprehensive, community-driven approach to combating health disparities. The infrastructure for this initiative includes the creation of health equity coalitions in each of the ten US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Public Health Service (PHS) areas. Regional Health Equity Councils (RHECs) are independent, nongovernmental health equity coalitions which are composed of leaders and stakeholders from nonfederal, public and private entities within each region. The RHECs' primary role is to serve as an incubator for ideas and strategic actions designed to address community- and state-level health disparities issues in each of the regions, and ultimately to contribute to the elimination of health disparities throughout the country. The presentation will describe the NPA’s procedures and protocols for building and sustaining ten, cross-state health equity coalitions, including activities to build a stable coalition infrastructure (e.g., development of charters and operating procedures, annual strategic planning, continual recruitment of members); and how RHECs have approached developing strategic partnerships to leverage resource and ensure coalition sustainability.