To take advantage of the growing number of databases and knowledge bases, we present a system that allows for cooperation among spatially distributed agents. Cooperation is supported by providing a uniform agent model and a framework for instantiating various cooperation strategies. The knowledge base functionality forms an agent’s body, while the cooperation functionality is achieved via the agent’s head, which is a highly specialized coordination and communication expert system. The power of the cooperation arises from the ability to combine highly specialized knowledge bases and powerful reasoning engines to “expert system task forces”. These task forces are created only for the duration of a certain project and modify themselves as the need arises. This flexibility brings the benefits of coordination technology from the area of computer supported cooperative work to distributed knowledge bases. We demonstrate these ideas using the domain of linguistic knowledge representation.