The New England Document Conservation Center was founded in 1973, to serve as a shared conservation resource, eliminating wasteful duplication of equipment and making available on a regional basis the very scarce skills of professionally trained paper conservators. Although the concept of regional conservation centers has been recognized widely as the most promising solution to the nation's massive conservation problem, only a few centers have been established successfully. Serious financial challenges are implied in the mandate of a center to support itself by serving a relatively impoverished clientele. The problems of running a conservation center include the pressure of marketing, pricing, estimating, staffing, and the element of unpredictability every time a book is disbound or a document immersed in water. Using NEDCC's experience the study assesses the conditions necessary for establishing such a center. -- AATA