The ACF is well-known for its policy change theory, which hypothesizes multiple pathways to policy change, including imposition of policy change by a “hierarchically superior jurisdiction.” And yet little explicit attention has been paid to the multi-level nature of coalition-based activity in a federal, and inherently nested, subsystem. This study examines how national coalitions used a variety of resources and related strategies to influence state-level policy change in the context of a low-salience social policy subsystem: Day Habilitation and Employment services for individuals with Intellectual and Developmental Disability. The study relies on qualitative data and a process-tracing approach to illuminate the mechanisms of policy change in a nested subsystem.