During recent years of increased smartphone and tablet adoption there has been a growing interest in how to improve training and performance opportunities with mobile learning and mobile performance support. Increasingly, instructional designers and developers of traditional eLearning are realizing that the design paradigms for mobile learning are significantly different. Results from a needs assessment conducted for the Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL)'s Mobile Training Implementation Framework (MoTIF) project in 2014 identified a strong demand for a mobile learning design model that can effectively inform, situate, and invite consideration of tactical learning approaches, mobile usage patterns, and mobile affordances. This paper is based on nearly three years of research findings on mobile learning and performance support as part of the MoTIF project. The findings led to the development of a reference model that could improve the design of training and performance support solutions for mobile devices. The reference model components were substantiated by the quantitative and qualitative data collected during the needs assessment and will be iteratively refined and evaluated for improvements in the future. While the model will continue to capture new considerations as an innovative mobile learning design strategy, it can actually be leveraged and adopted by DoD education and training initiatives today as either a conceptual framework or decision support tool.