Tracking chemical inventory is necessary for safety management as well as regulatory compliance and is especially challenging for research and laboratory organizations. Safety and compliance, waste minimization, emergency preparedness, and facility planning all benefit from knowing what chemicals are on site, who is responsible for them, and where they are located. Managing chemical inventories at colleges and universities has been identified as one of the major environmental health and safety challenges for higher education institutions. The organizational structure and diversity of activities at colleges and universities has made resolving this issue most difficult. Stanford University developed a chemical inventory management solution that provides researchers, administrators and EH&S/Risk Managers at institutions of higher education and other not-for-profit organizations with the tools they need to enhance their inventory control and regulatory reporting while reducing the costs associated with chemical management. At the core of the service is a hosted software solution that provides chemical inventory management, using an easy-to-use web browser interface. Underlying the software is a sophisticated expert system that classifies chemicals and tracks regulatory reporting requirements. The result is a solution that provides a fast, powerful reporting and inventory management and reporting solution at a fraction of the cost of commercial solutions. This presentation will focus on the organizational challenges of developing and implementing a system for academic research.