Access to large, inclusive cancer databases such as the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End-Results (SEER) registries enables timely and efficient identification of cancer cases and gathering of tumor data. HealthPartners Institute for Education and Research's (HPIER) ability to conduct cancer research has been hampered by lack of access to such registries. HPIER developed a capacity-building project to explore how to quickly and accurately identify cancer cases and related data for research. Identification of a viable electronic data source would allow HPIER to populate the virtual data warehouse (VDW) tumor table and participate in multi-site studies within the Cancer Research Network (CRN).