The Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD), the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), and the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) invite new (type 1) and competitive renewal (type 2) applications for the Autism Centers of Excellence: Centers Program, hereafter termed “ACE Centers”. ACE Centers will focus on supporting the broad research goals of the 2011 Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee Strategic Plan for ASD Research (http://iacc.hhs.gov/strategic-plan/2011/index.shtml. The P50 mechanism allows for integrative, multi-disciplinary, coordinated programs of research that demonstrate cohesion and synergy across research subprojects and cores. A companion FOA (RFA-HD-12-196) invites applications for ACE Networks supported by the R01 mechanism.