Families play central roles in the current HIV/AIDS pandemic, taking up both the care of orphaned children and the care of children and adults suffering AIDS-related illness. This extra caregiving burden, however, depletes two family resources essential for supporting the healthy development of children: time and money. We use recent data from countries in sub-Saharan Africa to illustrate these deficits and to show how communities are currently responding. In our survey in Botswana, parents caring for the chronically ill had far less time for their preschool children (74 versus 96 hours per month) [1] and were almost twice as likely to leave children left home alone (53% versus 27%) [2]; not surprisingly, these children experienced greater health and academic problems [1]. Furthermore, caregiving often prevented adults from being able to work full time or earn their previous level of income; approximately half (47%) of the orphan caregivers and 64% of the HIV/AIDS caregivers reported financial difficulties due to this extra caregiving [2, 3]. Communities can play an important role in helping families earn enough to support children, and still be around to provide adequate childcare. Unfortunately, our evidence suggests that while communities commonly offer informal assistance, the value of such support is not adequate to match the magnitude of need. For example, 75% of children’s families in Malawi received assistance from their social network, but this assistance averaged only US$81 annually [4]. We conclude by examining what this body of evidence tells us about how community support can strengthen the capacity of families to deliver care to children affected by HIV/AIDS. In particular, we address the importance of implementing affordable quality childcare for 0-6 year olds, after-school programming for older children and youth, supportive care for ill children and caregivers, microlending to enhance earnings, training to increase access to quality jobs, establishment of decent working conditions that make it possible to provide care while earning a living in the formal sector, social insurance for the informal sector, and income and food transfers when families are unable to make ends meet.