Many studies simplify the linkages between agricultural research and poverty and measure only one or two aspects of those linkages. This approach may miss important aspects of poor people's lives, including the diverse ways in which technology affects their livelihoods. This paper presents an alternative approach that is being employed in a study of the impact of agricultural research on poverty. This study, led by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) on behalf of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research's (CGIAR) Standing Panel on Impact Assessment (SPIA), currently includes five case studies. The common thread in these case studies is the use of the sustainable livelihoods framework as the starting point for the analysis. The framework is more complex than those used in many approaches and calls for interdisciplinary research methods. Experience to date suggests that the approach is not only manageable, but provides important additional insights that would not otherwise be obtained from conventional research approaches.