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Successful ranching families maintain flexibility in their operations over decades to multi-generational time spans. Interviews and focus groups with ranchers in the Western Great Plains help rangeland scientists understand flexibility, and barriers to flexibility, from a �ranchers� perspective�. I seek to describe the multiple scales at which flexibility is important to ranchers by analyzing qualitative interviews with 16 cow-calf and cow-calf plus yearling operations, as well as data from a focus group of yearling operators in eastern Colorado and eastern Wyoming. ��These case studies reveal specific ways that simultaneous climatic, socio-cultural, ecological and economic variability drive ranchers to emphasize flexible, adaptive management approaches, even as rangeland management trends toward intensification. I describe how this flexibility is maintained through social adaptations, ecological knowledge/learning and through technological innovation. Ranchers describe how they seek flexibility in their 1) cultural traditions and personal, ethical decision-making processes, 2) through their grazing management and drought planning and practices, and 3) through social networks/relationships. �I critically examine these rancher-reported sources of flexibility in light of the heterogeneity and resilience approaches to rangeland/natural resource management presented in recent literature. These insights into flexibility from successful ranchers ground adaptive management in a real-world context that can inform efforts by rangeland scientists and public land management agencies to promote flexibility in public/private rangelands.