“Native Navigators and the Cancer Continuum” (NNACC) was a community-based participatory research study awarded by the National Institute of Minority Health and Health Disparities (2008–2014). The partners for the research project were five organizations that have a long history of successful engagement in the American Indian community or are federally recognized tribes. They are Native American Cancer Research Corporation, CO (NACR), Intertribal Council of Michigan, Incorporated, MI (ITCMI), Rapid City Regional Hospital, SD (RCRH), Great Plains Tribal Chairmen's Health Board, SD (GPTCHB), and Muscogee (Creek) Nation, OK (MCN) (referred to as the “Partners” in this CPBR study). The NNACC study utilized native patient navigators (NPNs) who are lay patient navigators (i.e., none work directly for a clinical setting) from each community setting. The lay NPNs were very successful in implementing education sessions, referring participants to screening and navigating the process when necessary through diagnosis and treatment. Many people question why there is a need for a navigator from the local community who is familiar with local culture and customs and health care systems accessed by American Indians (AIs) in their respective communities. Although there are many reasons, the five most common are [1] as follows: Issues of Trust due to Prior History of Mistreatment and Its Impact on Health Care Access AI populations have valid reasons for distrust of researchers and health care systems. [2] Historical trauma is cumulative and collective. The impact of this type of trauma manifests itself, emotionally and psychologically, in members of different cultural groups [3] . As a collective phenomenon, those who never even experienced the traumatic stressor, such as children and descendants, can still exhibit signs and symptoms of trauma. Historical trauma is described as a multigenerational trauma experienced by a specific cultural group [4]. A conceptual model of historical trauma offers an explanation of the relationship between historical trauma and how American Indians access health care and public health [5]. This relationship has resulted in a barrier to care that NPNs in each community can address due to a personal knowledge of the history and the resulting trauma in the local area. Historical trauma has resulted in a fear of the health care system and a feeling of futility on the part of the native patient. As a result, many American Indians do not access health care until there is an emergency. The NPNs reduce the feelings of fear through education and navigation. In addition, Christopher et al. documented multiple examples of natives' distrust of researchers based on numerous historical events [6]. Unethical research or care protocols have historical relevance to government policies designed to annihilate AIs in the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth centuries; others are more recent and include sterilization of AI women without informed consents in the 1970s [2]. In 2010, the Havasupai won their lawsuit against Arizona State University (ASU) researchers for misusing blood samples taken from nearly every tribal member. Such behavior creates mistrust throughout “Indian Country” and makes the ability to develop successful community-academic partnerships for the purpose of research even more difficult to establish. Appreciating and understanding the multiple reasons for this lack of trust is critical in order for PNs to be successful and for researchers to pursue areas of investigation in this population [7].