"The community" is seen by many as the solution to a range of challenges: social, political and economic exclusion and polarization, crime and moral decline, the caring crisis, and sustainable development. But communities are complex phenomena and ideas of community empowerment contain many tensions and contradictions. This text explores the challenges involved in empowering communities and assesses the lessons for policy and practice from the experience of some three decades of community-based approaches to social disadvantage and exclusion.