Humanitarian crisis situations frequently affect developing countries that have adopted Community Based Rehabilitation (CBR) to organize rehabilitation services at the community level. At the same time, CBR has increasingly been used in industrialized countries. CBR should be understood as an inclusive community development strategy aiming to promote the social participation of persons living in disabling situations. However, there is conceptual confusion in the scientific literature about CBR and two other forms of community collaboration, either the community-based rehabilitation interventions or community rehabilitation. The objectives of this conceptual article are: 1) to compare these three forms of collaboration, and 2) to identify some of the issues associated with the work in partnership with communities of the province of Québec (Canada), industrialized countries, developing countries, as well as in the context of humanitarian crisis situations. Comparisons put into evidence that CBR is a form of community collaboration that calls for a more systemic approach that may include community-based rehabilitation interventions (mainly referring to a certain type of services) and rehabilitation in the community (mainly referring to the location where services are delivered). Some issues are specific to RBC (e.g. strengthening of partnerships with specialized services compared to community services), while the others are common to the three forms of community collaboration (e.g. transportation). In addition, the majority of the issues present challenges that are different depending on the context. CBR is a global rehabilitation strategy that might be of interest to those wishing to promote, notably in crisis situations, the social participation of all community members. However, further research is needed to identify the forms of community collaboration that are the most efficient in various settings.