One of the most pressing challenges facing managers of basic science, applied research and advanced technology is inserting the knowledge, components and products produced in Science and Technology (S&T) programs into acquisition programs of record. Over the past decade, the US Navy and Marine Corps have had several documented successes in merging basic S&T products into the DoD acquisition process. In this paper, the Office of Naval Research's Virtual Technologies and Environments (VIRTE) program is presented as a successful case study for how scientific exploration and advanced technology development can be integrated with the systems acquisition process to provide today's Warfighter with validated, effective training tools. Over six years, the VIRTE program focused on using a modified form of the Instructional System Design (ISD) process combined with management oversight techniques such as Virtual Product Teams and Intermediate Feasibility Experiments, to develop Virtual Environment based solutions to target a range of US Navy and Marine Corps training gaps. The process was adapted from elements of the DoDI 5000.2 Acquisition Management Framework, particularly those that deal with User Needs and Technology Opportunities at the Pre-Systems Acquisition stage. Along with a discussion of the methods and techniques used, this paper will also provide a detailed discussion of some of the more critical challenges faced by the program development team and suggest how and where lessons learned could be applied to future programs. Special emphasis is placed on developing measures for assessing program success. In particular, these measures include: the number of products successfully transitioned to US Navy and Marine Corps programs of records; performance enhancement based assessments; and measures of cost/benefit. These transition successes, lessons learned and processes developed are extensible across the spectrum of S&T projects and acquisition programs of record.