Academic health departments present a paradigm for local health authorities as they struggle to serve amidst calls for quality in public health service delivery and dwindling resource allocations to the sector. Duval County Health Department, Florida, presents a novel community based model of an academic health department. This approach to interagency collaboration yields dividends in increasing the capacity of the health department to deliver core public health services, impacts positively on chronic disease surveillance, population health and health services research and positions the department to seize opportunities for further capacity building as they arise.