Many agricultural-based communities in the Great Plains region of North America face declining rural populations and shrinking market size to levels eventually insufficient to maintain their functions. In response, rural communities often pursue a variety of business recruitment and retention initiatives including incentives to entice new business to their location. This paper estimates a model of business-community compatibility designed to assist communities in identifying potential business opportunities, given the community’s characteristics. An Industrial Targeting system for Rural Communities (ITRC) model is developed to suggest business investment alternatives, and the prerequisite conditions for attracting them. Findings suggest that industrial targeting is a complex, iterative, and often creative exercise and that a detailed investigation of business requirements and community attributes is informative. However, the ITRC model must be used along with other information about local and regional economic and institutional conditions.