Community resilience is the capacity of individuals, communities, institutions, businesses, and systems to thrive no matter what kinds of chronic stresses and acute shocks they experience. However, rural communities often lack capacity and expertise to build collaborative resilience strategies, and existing resilience assessment frameworks fail to holistically assess rural contexts. To address these challenges, we are creating a university-community partnership model to conduct a resilience assessment and strategy with rural communities. Our Building Resilient Communities approach is adapted from the City Resilience Index (CRI), with its strengths lying in its rural focus, customizability, and emphasis on solutions and strategy-building moving forward.